Erland Kolding Nielsen (13 January 1947 – 23 January 2017) was Director General and CEO of The Danish Royal Library (now part of the National Library of Denmark, the Copenhagen University Library, the National Museum for Books and Printing, the National Museum of Photography, the Danish Museum of Cartoons).
Early life and career
Erland Kolding-Nielsen was born in the Frederiksberg district of Copenhagen on Monday January 13, 1947. He obtained a MA in history in 1973, writing a thesis for the Gold Medal of the University of Copenhagen. He then served as lecturer in history and library science at the Royal School of Librarianship. Copenhagen, 1971–1980. Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences 1980–1986. Head of the Education of Research Librarians and Documentalists 1984–1986 part-time Associate Professor at the Institute of Contemporary History, University of Copenhagen, 1973–1983. Professor Adjunct, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen 2013–2017.
The Royal Library
Erland Kolding Nielsen was appointed Director General af The Royal Library in March 1986. He has been leading the national library's physical and digital development within administration, organisation and collection development, and by digitalisation of the library's collections. The first online catalogue REX was introduced in 1987 with electronic circulation from 1990. All aspects of internal and external library management and services were fully digitalised from 2007, constituting the full digital library. All physical catalogues, including numerous handwritten, were retro-converted by 2015, the catalogues of the five main collections by 2010, into REX, now comprising more than 9 million records. Together with the State and University Library of Aarhus Kolding Nielsen managed for the first time in 70 years to get a new Legal Deposit Law through the Ministry of Culture, which was passed by the Parliament in 1997, and fundamentally revised again in 2004, including all digital formats. Established in 2009 as a new part of the National Bibliography a full registration of retro-digitalised collections of all kinds in Denmark (2016, c. 330). The collections, now mounting to 35 million items (2015), were greatly enlarged in his time, the collections of photographs more than doubled to 20 million, big music and other private and institutional archives, the Netarchive.dk was established 2005, now comprising more than 25 billion documents and 2.4 million Danish websites.
The library as a research institution was greatly enhanced, including monumental scholarly editions as the Carl Nielsen Edition (52 vol.s 1998-2009), followed by the Danish Centre for Music Publication from 2009, the Correspondence of Werner Best with the German Foreign Office and other German Documents Concerning the Occupation of Denmark 1942-45 (in German, 10 vol.s 2012), and within the series Danish Humanist Texts and Studies, altogether more than 300 volumes through 30 years. Succeeded with the second Danish-Swedish exchange of manuscripts in 2011 (return of Codex holmiensis C 37 from Stockholm). As member since 1987 and chair since 1995 of the Commission on Exports of Cultural Assets he channelled many books, manuscripts and archived into the Royal Library.
From 1999 the cultural functions and services of the national library to the public were greatly enlarged, including a chamber orchestra-in-residence the DiamondEnsemble from 2004, a semi-permanent treasure exhibition in the Montana Hall 2006, the International Author’s Stage 2008, and many other exhibitions, lecture series, artists’ talks, conferences, etc.
During the same period, extensive structural changes has taken place, the biggest of which is the waterfront's new landmark, the Black Diamond, which after a European architectural competition I 1993, won by Schmidt, Hammer, Lassen Architects, was completed in 1999, with the multifunctional chamber music hall, The Queen’s Hall. The iconic university library building from 1861 in Fiolstræde was completely renovated 1997, and a new Faculty Library for the Humanities at the Amager Campus of the University of Copenhagen, completed in two phases in 1998 and 2008. Responsible for 11 institutional mergers into the Royal Library since 1990, most importantly the National Library for Science and Medicine 2005 and the Danish Folk Archives 2008.
International professional bodies
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bibliotheca Baltica, member of the board 1994–1998.
ECPA, the European Commission on Preservation and Access 2000–2008.