Personnel changes on the Board of Trustees: Barbara Helwing becomes Director of the Museum of the Ancient Near East, Claudia Martin-Konle takes over the State Library's user department
Press release from 12/18/2018
The Board of Trustees of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, chaired by Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters, today unanimously made far-reaching personnel decisions for the National Museums in Berlin and the Berlin State Library
The Museum of the Ancient Near East at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin will be headed by Barbara Helwing from spring 2019. She succeeds Markus Hilgert, who has been Secretary General of the Kulturstiftung der Länder since 1 June 2018. Ms Helwing studied Near Eastern archaeology, pre- and early history and anthropology at the University of Heidelberg, where she also completed her doctorate with a thesis on Late Chalcolithic pottery from southern Anatolia. After completing her doctorate, she worked as a lecturer at Bilkent University in Ankara before moving to the German Archaeological Institute in 2000, first as a consultant for Iranian archaeology in the Eurasia department and later as head of the Tehran branch. During this time, she habilitated at the University of Tübingen in 2008 and was authorised to teach Near Eastern Archaeology. Ms Helwing not only conducted intensive research, she was also passionate about communicating specialist content to a wide audience. In 2017, she curated the exhibition "Iran. Early Cultures between Water and Desert" at the Bundeskunsthalle, and a year earlier she moved to the University of Sydney, where she currently holds the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of Middle Eastern Archaeology. Ms Helwing sees great potential in the dialogue between the Museum of the Ancient Near East and the neighbouring museums on Museum Island and the Humboldt Forum. She wants to break new ground in mediation and intensify international co-operation.
There is also a new appointment at the State Library: Claudia Martin-Konle will take over the user department next year. She studied German and psychology and has worked in various positions at the University Library in Giessen. She sees the library as a place to develop the digital media and information skills of its users. She would also like to initiate changes with the help of surveys in order to attract new user groups and further develop the library's service as a reading and learning centre for different user groups.