Dr. Elisabeth Niggemann is the Director General of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library) in Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. In 1987 she started her career as a librarian at the German Central Library for Medicine in Cologne as head of the acquisitions department. In 1989 she became head of the cataloguing and subject indexing department at the University and State Library at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf. In 1994, she became the director of Düsseldorf University and State Library. She came into her present position in 1999. She has been involved in many national and international working groups and committees. At present she is Chair of the Board of Directors of CENL (Conference of European National Librarians), a member of the Board of Trustees of OCLC, a Board member of the "Stiftung Buchkunst", a member of several Advisory Councils, a member of the High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries of the European Commission and Chair of the European Digital Library Foundation. She is a member of the LIBRI Advisory Board and one of the editors of the "Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie".