Foundation Board has decided: Dr Achim Bonte becomes the new Director General of the Berlin State Library - Prof. Dr Rebecca Wolf takes over the State Institute for Music Research
Press release from 03/24/2021
Dr Achim Bonte is to become the new Director General of the Berlin State Library. This was decided unanimously by the Board of Trustees of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation today, Wednesday. Bonte succeeds Barbara Schneider-Kempf, who is retiring after seventeen years at the helm of Germany's largest academic universal library.
Dr Achim Bonte, born in Karlsruhe in 1964, studied German language and literature and history at the universities of Mannheim, Freiburg im Breisgau and Basel. He received his doctorate in 1995 with a thesis on political culture in the Weimar Republic. From 1996 to 2006, he worked at Heidelberg University Library, initially as a subject librarian and latterly as deputy director. Bonte managed three large and very different business areas in ten years. Among other things, he played a key role in the reorganisation of the university library system and thus took decisive steps towards greater efficiency and service strength, which are exemplary throughout Germany.
In 2006, Dr Achim Bonte moved to the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library (SLUB) as Deputy Director General. In this role, he was responsible for the coordination of business processes, the expansion of the digital library, the development of third-party funded projects and co-operation between the Saxon libraries. With the establishment of an important digitisation centre and pioneering initiatives for cooperative software development, new specialist information services and open science, he played a key role in establishing SLUB Dresden as one of the top-performing libraries in Germany. Dr Achim Bonte has been Director General of the SLUB since 2018.
The Chair of the Board of Trustees, Minister of State Monika Grütters, said of Bonte's appointment: "Achim Bonte is a proven expert with clear ideas for the library of the 21st century. With his valuable experience in managing large institutions, as the new Director General of the State Library he will master the upcoming challenges of the changing library landscape and digitisation with aplomb. His expertise will also be a great asset to the structural reform of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
I would like to thank Barbara Schneider-Kempf very much for her many years of successful commitment as Director General of the State Library, which will continue to have an impact for a long time to come, not least because of her passion for the cause."
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said after the Board of Trustees meeting: "With Dr Achim Bonte, our State Library is not only gaining an experienced librarian, but also an innovative mind who will lead the House of Two Houses into the future in a modern and service-oriented manner. Under his leadership, the State Library will also be an open place for social debates and will be well networked with the SPK. The day of the new beginning is also a day of thanks to the outgoing Director General Barbara Schneider-Kempf, who has successfully led the Staatsbibliothek. The general refurbishment of the Unter den Linden building was her major project, which she has now successfully brought to a conclusion."
The new Director General, Dr Achim Bonte, said in an initial reaction: "After 25 valuable years in Heidelberg and Dresden, I am delighted to be able to help shape the future path of this important building. On the basis of its great tradition and its outstanding collections, as well as with the dedicated teams in the library and foundation, we should succeed in further developing the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: as an innovative research infrastructure and knowledge marketplace, an attractive employer for a wide range of specialists and always open to ideas and contributions from its many users."
Dr Achim Bonte takes office on 1 September.
The State Institute for Music Research will also have a new director. The Board of Trustees has appointed Prof. Dr Rebecca Wolf as the future director and successor to Dr Thomas Ertelt, who is retiring after two decades at the helm of the institute.
Prof Dr Rebecca Wolf was born in Gomadingen in 1975. She studied musicology, theatre studies and modern German literature at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She received her doctorate from the University of Vienna in 2008. The musicologist has been associated with the Deutsches Museum in Munich for many years, where she began her career and is a successful researcher. She is currently a deputy professor at the University of Regensburg. Prof Wolf also worked as a research assistant in the special research area "Cultures of the Performative" at the FU Berlin, gave lectures at the FU and TU Berlin, the Universities of Vienna and Zurich and the HMDK Stuttgart and was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Music Department of Harvard University in 2012. From 2015 to 2020, she was a research group leader at the Deutsches Museum in Munich in a project funded by the Leibniz Association on the "Materiality of Musical Instruments: New Approaches to a Cultural History of Organology" and also a lecturer at the Institute of Musicology at LMU Munich.
Prof Wolf's research focuses on historical musicology since the late 18th century, instrumentology, sound studies and the history of acoustics, including systematic musicology. She has been working at the interface between non-university research, museums and universities for several years and is familiar with the tasks of research and collection institutions.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, Minister of State Monika Grütters said: "As a recognised musicologist with a wide range of experience at the interface between non-university research, museums and universities, Rebecca Wolf is very familiar with the tasks of a research and collection institution such as the State Institute for Music Research. Thanks to her various professional positions and collaborations, she has excellent national and international connections and is therefore ideally placed to further expand the international appeal of the SIM. I am sure that Rebecca Wolf will represent the SIM in the reform process of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation with commitment and provide groundbreaking impulses for the future of the institute.
My thanks go to Thomas Ertelt, who has shaped the work of the SIM with great personal commitment and the highest level of academic expertise."
SPK President Hermann Parzinger: "Rebecca Wolf is a researcher, museum woman and mediator in one. With her, the SIM will have a director who not only has an excellent academic reputation, but who has also proven that musicology can be effective in the public eye. This is particularly important for the further development of the Musical Instrument Museum. I am sure that Mrs Wolf will lead the SIM with fortune into a good future.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing director Thomas Ertelt, who opened up the museum next to the Berlin Philharmonie with events on performance practice and the interpretation of music and proved that musicology does not have to be an orchid subject."
Prof. Wolf commented after the election: "I am delighted to be entrusted with this exciting and honourable task. Together with the broad-based, committed team, I would like to strengthen the extraordinary potential of the SIM with its rich collections relating to the world of music as an internationally important research centre and continue to anchor it within the SPK network. The expertise of the three departments can be clearly linked through common themes such as (im)material culture, music perception and performance practice and developed into formats that invite both a researching and music-interested public."
Prof Dr Rebecca Wolf will take up her post in late summer.