Tell us a bit about yourself ?
I work as a director of library systems and digitization at Mannheim University Library/ Germany. Link: https://www.bib.uni-mannheim.de/en/contact-persons/dr-christian-haenger/
Mannheim University has an high reputation for Economics and Social Sciences and is located in a beautiful Baroque Castle. The university library uses Alma and Primo and has been an early adopter for both products in Germany.
What was your first experience with the ExLibris User community?
Jirka Kende brought me into the Ex Libris User community. I met him first in 2005 when he demonstrated Aleph to Bettina and me. The two of us made a tender for a new library system. During the next years we joined a Primo consortia and he asked me to attend Primo PWG.
Where do you think the Steering Committee can add the most value to the community?
I see the Steering Committee and all IGeLU officers as service provider for IGeLU members. We advocate for a good quality of the products and the support. SC and IGeLU officers are in charge for bulding the community of the Ex Libris members. This is being in charge for the mailing lists, the conference and advocating for the customers’ needs.
What are your future hopes for the community ? How would you like to see IGELU develop?
We shall convince Ex Libris to obligate to the pronciples of openness – much more than they do now. Ex Libris started a process in opening their documentation and supporting the discussion of Ex Libris and community developers. I have the dream of discussing with them the future functions of products and making parts of their code open in GitHub.
Christian Haenger
Steering Committee