The Magic of Beginnings: Felix Ostrowski
News from 11/12/2020
Felix Ostrowski has been the head of the Presentation and Information Management section of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin since September. After graduating in technical communication and working at the University Library Center of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Institute of Library and Information Science at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Ostrowski most recently worked as an independent IT consultant for memory institutions (repositories of public knowledge such as libraries, archives etc.). Here he tells us of his first impressions and a new addition to his favorite places.
“Since September 1, 2020, I have been in charge of the Presentation and Information Management section of the Information and Data Management department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library). I have a very wide range of tasks, covering several different areas. In addition to general management tasks, they include the analysis, in mutual consultation, the requirements set by and for the specialist departments. Together with my colleagues, I develop concepts for modern library services such as specialist portals, material portals, and topic-based portals. The development of communication forms and instruments as well as the support of agile project management processes also belong to my area of responsibility.
In the future, I plan to use a variety of creative methods to match the services and tools – both existing and new – even better to the needs of each target group. I'm also looking forward very much to developing these in close collaboration with them.
In my first few days, I was also happy to discover another favorite place: the reading room. I've been working in the library world for a long time, but this is the first time that I've worked in a real library! I was also happy to get to know my new colleagues – owing to the corona restrictions, it had to be a virtual meeting, but it worked extremely well!”