SPARC Announces New European Leadership

"In a move that completes a year-long strategic restructuring of SPARC’s operations in Europe, Dr. Alma Swan has been appointed to the position of Director of European Advocacy, and Lars Bjørnshauge has been named SPARC’s Director of European Library Relations....Alma Swan, who co-founded Key Perspectives Ltd., a scholarly communications consultancy in 1996, has more than two decades in medical cell biology research and scholarly publishing. She holds graduate degrees in cell biology and business administration, and has experience in the university environment (as a faculty member of Leicester University) as well as in the publishing industry (serving as senior managing editor for Pergamon Press/Elsevier Science). Swan will be responsible for leading SPARC’s advocacy programs throughout Europe, with a concentration on regular outreach to the European Commission and European Parliament....Lars Bjørnshauge, a long-standing member of the SPARC Europe Board, has been serving as SPARC’s Interim European Director since October, taking on the overall management of the 93-member library organization. He will continue to lead SPARC’s high-level education and outreach programs, capitalizing on his more than twenty years’ experience in the library community. Prior to his decade-long service as Director of Lund Libraries, he held management positions at the Technical Knowledge Center & Library of Denmark (DTV) in Lyngby, as well as serving as head of department at the Royal Danish School of Librarianship in Copenhagen...."