Anja Smit leaves as Director of Utrecht University Library

After 12 years, Anja Smit is leaving as Librarian of Utrecht University as of mid-July. She will become Director of DANS, the national expertise center and repository for research data.

Anja Smit anounced her departure from the University Library today. “I've always enjoyed working at UU immensely, but it's time for a new challenge. For myself, and also because I think renewal is good for the University Library. At DANS, I can contribute to a nice assignment on a very relevant and current subject for science.” 

“Anja is a wonderful librarian, with a stellar reputation in the Netherlands and abroad," says rector magnificus Henk Kummeling. "In recent years she has been closely involved with Utrecht University's Open Science programme. We are going to miss her very much. But, of course, we wish her a lot of fun and success in her new job.”

DANS is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). DANS helps researchers make their data available for reuse. This way, scientists can use the data for new research and published research is verifiable and repeatable. This requires knowledge of how data can be made findable, accessible and interoperable. DANS is an internationally recognised center of expertise in that area. Furthermore, DANS is a certified data archive. With more than 200,000 data sets and sixty employees, DANS is one of the most prominent and fastest growing repositories in Europe.