Seven members of the ELUNA Steering Committee (from left to right: Allen Jones, Laura Morse, Pascal Calarco, Kirsten Clark, Jason Griffith, Dean Lingley) gathered in Leuven, Belgium this weekend to meet with IGeLU and Ex Libris colleagues in advance of the IGeLU Conference.
On Saturday, the Steering Committee had internal meetings and worked on improvements to ELUNA communications, ELUNA membership models, document management, and the website. On Sunday, the ELUNA and IGeLU Steering Committee met to discuss a number of current joint initiatives, like customer support, the product enhancement process, and new opportunities to manage work together more effectively and transparently. Sunday afternoon the Steering Committee was invited to observe the IGeLU National User Groups (INUG) meeting, which provided insight into the current needs of INUG member. To close the day the Steering Committee met with Ex Libris senior management to discuss the current challenges and opportunities across the entire community.
The site of the conference, Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, is a university in operation since 1425. The city itself, established in 891, is known as “The beer capital of Belgium”, home to one of the world’s largest brewers, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and home of the Stella Artois brewery. The university library was destroyed by the Germans during their occupation of the Flemish city during 1914 and later rebuilt in 1918. Many ELUNA member institutions provided donations to support the restoration. The library’s rich and storied past can be found here: https://bib.kuleuven.be/english/about/history-tourism#woi.
