The Charleston Hub was saddened to learn of the untimely and unexpected passing of our colleague Filippos Tsimpoglou, General Director of National library of Greece. We’ve included announcements and condolences from several sources below.

Filippos Tsimpoglou had a PhD in Librarianship and Information Science from Ionian University (2006), and BSc in Economics from Athens University on Business and Economics (1983). Since April 2014 he was the Director General of the National Library of Greece, charged with the preparation and transition of collections and services of NLG to its new premises at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre. His responsibilities included the organization of “idle services” of a classical National Library with a modern approach, the planning and development of infrastructure and services in order NLG to successfully address the challenges of the digital era, the creation of a series of innovative services of a public library within the NLG, acting as a standard for ecosystem of the National Network of Libraries, the establishment of the NLG to an unsurpassed center of support for Greek studies internationally. He was the Director of the Library and ex officio member of the Senate of the University of Cyprus from December 1999 to March 2014, his tasks included the development of new information services and accomplishment of strategic alliances. He inspired the creation of the Cyprus Libraries Consortium. In 2009 he led the Library to the “Three Stars EFQM Recognised for Excellence in Europe” award. From 1983 to 1999 he was working for the development of the National Hellenic Documentation Centre. He contributed to the development of a National Information System by developing the National Interlibrary Lending Network, the repository of the Greek PhD Dissertation (12.000 theses), the Archaeological Greek Online System etc. During 2003-2008 he coordinated the project of the Hellenic Academic Libraries Union Catalogue with 5.000.000 records from 70 institutions. His thesis was published in 2008 as a book titled “Libraries collaboration. A systems approach”. He is the author of numerous papers.

Association of Greek Librarians and Information Scientists
84, Αkadimias st., 106 78 Athens, Greece,
enosiebep@gmail.com, http://www.eebep.gr

Dear Colleagues,

It is with deepest sorrow to inform you about the sudden and untimely death of Filippos Tsiboglou the General Director of National library of Greece.  His personality, his work in the librarianship field he served with vision and passion as well for his studies, will continue to be mentioned by people who knew him closely and worked with him.

He served several institutions, building innovative information services. From 1983 to 1999 he worked at the National Documentation Centre / National Research Foundation as a manager of European-funded programmes. From 1999 to 2014 he served as Director of the Library of the University of Cyprus.  From 2014 until his death, he served as Director General of the National Library of Greece; he undertook the huge project of its relocation from the Vallianeion Building to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center and, after its completion worked tirelessly for a true National Library

He collaborated with AGLIS in organizing the 1st and 2nd PanHellenic Conference of public Libraries, in the national policy proposal as the chairman of this committee and in the organization of the IFLA conference in Athens in 2019, as one of the three presidents.

It is with deep sorrow that we say goodbye to our friend, partner and fellow Filippos Tsiboglou.

Rest in Peace Filippos.

The Board of Directors of the Association of Greek Librarians and Information Scientists

It is with great sorrow that we learned of the untimely death of Filippos Tsimpoglou, General Director of the National Library of Greece.

Filippos’ passion and dedication to his field were matched by experience and vision as he guided his library towards the future. He was an enthusiastic collaborator and tireless in his contribution to and support for international dialogue around librarianship.

We will remember him as a truly warm and welcoming host to us during last year’s Fiesole Retreat in Athens, and as an inspirational colleague who will be sadly missed.

The Fiesole Retreat Planning Committees
https://fiesoleretreat.org/

Filippos Tsimpoglou Introduction by Ann Okerson, CRL, at the 2022 Fiesole Retreat in Athens

We’ve heard the words of welcome from our founders and chief organizers, from Casalini Libri and the Charleston Company.  Now it is my extraordinary pleasure to introduce our Opening Keynote Speaker, Dr. Filippos Tsimpoglou, the Director General of the National Library of Greece.

You have in your packets a short bio of this distinguished international library leader, and I’ll repeat only a small part of it.  In 2014, Filippos was appointed to his current role and charged with the completion of the exciting and beautiful new library in which we are located this week.  He was also charged with the massive preparation and transition of the collections and services of the NLG to this location.  His current responsibilities include the blending of a classical national library with a modern approach in 4 parts (1) to create infrastructure and services that successfully address the challenges of the digital area; (2) to make available the services of this library as a public institution accessible to all readers (3) to undertake a leadership function for a national network of Greek libraries, and (4) to become an unsurpassed center of support for Greek studies internationally.  Those of us outside of Greece have watched the successful development in all these directions and have cheered Filippos and his extraordinary staff in their many successes to date.

I’d like to step back for a moment and say that back in spring of 2017, before the library formally opened, it was my great privilege to attend a workshop here of about 150 IFLA’s international leaders, followed by the IFLA Presidential program for that year.  This is where I first had the opportunity to meet Fillippos and to hear his inspiring charge to that group.  Right after that meeting, I wrote to Filippos asking if we might hold an upcoming Fiesole Retreat on these premises.  He wrote graciously and enthusiastically that, of course, we must meet here and offered the support of his staff to make it happen in April 2020.  It took us 5 years to get here, but we did it!

To back up, I was so taken with Filippos’s opening comments at that 2017 program, that I asked him for a copy of his remarks.  I quote just a few, to give you a sense of the working style of this exceptional library leader for our times:

* Libraries cannot any more be separated, isolated from each other, but, exploiting the digital technologies, they cooperate with each other, overcoming geographical and scientific frontiers;

* Libraries are operating as an active component of a global grid of information resources;

* Libraries cooperate to ensure the integrity of the whole information system, and not simply their own collections;

* Libraries undertake the creation and the curation of digital collections not only for their users, but for all who inhabit the global digital environment.

* Solutions to societal problems are not feasible at the level of any single library, or even a country, but through the systemic cooperation and coordination across all institutions.