Happy Birthday: ÖNB Director Johanna Rachinger Turns 65 on Thursday

When her contract expires at the end of 2026, she will have been at the helm of the ÖNB for 25 years. A period in which Rachinger was able to multiply the number of visitors and also implement renovation projects and the opening of the Literature Museum. Only the long-desired deep storage could not be realized.

Head of ÖNB Since 2001

"I look forward to showing what a woman can do," Rachinger exuded optimism when she was designated as Director General in February 2001. Since mid-2001, the Upper Austrian has been the head of Austria's most important library and its affiliated museum collections and has since proven very successfully what she can do. Most recently, she launched a forward-looking project with a package of measures for artificial intelligence (AI), including AI-supported cataloging processes and analyses of the extensive image material. An education offensive for the approximately 400 employees was also announced, "to make us AI-fit". As early as 2022, Rachinger had launched a new Center for Information and Media Competence, where students and the interested public are to be helped to find their way in the "jungle of information".

Rachinger Born in Upper Austria

Born on January 9, 1960 in Putzleinsdorf in the Mühlviertel, Johanna Rachinger attended the commercial academy in Rohrbach and studied theater science and German studies at the University of Vienna, where in 1986 she wrote her dissertation on "The Viennese People's Theater in the second half of the 19th century with special consideration of the playwright Ludwig Anzengruber". "There was a great affinity for the book from the beginning," Rachinger once said about herself.

She began her publishing career in 1987 as an editor at the small Viennese women's publishing house. From 1988 to 1992, she was head of the book advisory centre at the Austrian Library Association, and from 1992, she was programme director for the youth book sector at Carl Ueberreuter Publishing House. From 1995 to 2001, she was the managing director of the publishing house and admitted when she moved to the Austrian National Library (ÖNB), that she was leaving with some regret: "I felt very comfortable in the publishing house." She also enjoyed her work as a university lecturer on the subject of "bookstores, publishers, libraries" and as a leader of training courses for librarians "I had a lot of fun".

At the ÖNB, she implemented the spin-off as a fully legally competent scientific institution from 1st January 2002, quickly turning the library into a modern, user-oriented service facility, where she prioritised modern technology and digitisation. With exemplary provenance research and extensive restitutions, the ÖNB under Rachinger also faced its past. In her keynote speech on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Republic in 2008, she spoke clearly about coming to terms with the past and trivialising Nazi crimes.

More Visitors for the National Library

The development of visitor and budget figures was more than satisfactory. Already after her first full year at the head of the institution, the National Library recorded a 20 percent increase in visitors from around 114,000 to 137,000 visitors. Interest was significantly increased over the years, with 722,300 people visiting the Austrian National Library (including the House of Austrian History) most recently.

With the renovation of the main reading rooms, the image archive and the ceremonial hall, the establishment of a reading lounge, the inclusion of the music collection, the Globe Museum and the Esperanto Museum in the Palais Mollard in Herrengasse, the reopening of the map collection and the Augustinian reading room, Rachinger drove the spatial reorganisation forward. In 2015, the long-planned Literature Museum finally opened in Johannesgasse. In 2018, the House of Austrian History (hdgö) was established in the Neue Burg, which was organisationally attached to the ÖNB. The hdgö is scheduled to move to the Museumsquartier in 2028, in this context, Rachinger strongly advocated for the contemporary history museum to be transferred to its own federal museum.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.