Prof. Alojzy Z. Nowak, the Rector of the University of Warsaw, has appointed Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki to the position of the General Director of the University of Warsaw Library. His term of office began on 1st September and will last for five years.
In accordance with the Statutes of the University of Warsaw, the General Director of the University of Warsaw Library (BUW) is appointed by the Rector from among candidates selected through a competition, after consultation with the Senate and the library council. On 1st September, a ceremony was held in the Golden Hall of the Casimir Palace to present Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki with his appointment.
“I congratulate you on becoming the General Director of the University of Warsaw Library and I am glad that you were the winner of the competition. I wish you success and satisfaction in managing one of the most important units of the University of Warsaw,” said the UW Rector during the ceremony.
Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki will serve as General Director of the University of Warsaw Library for the 2025–2030 term.
“Taking on the role of General Director of the University of Warsaw Library is a great honour and a special responsibility for me. The University of Warsaw Library is an institution of exceptional importance – it combines a wealth of collections, the expertise of an outstanding team, and significance that extends beyond the walls of the university,” says Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki, emphasising: “My goal will be to strengthen its role as a modern centre of science, culture, and university life, as well as to reinforce the Library’s position in national and European academic librarianship, with full awareness of its traditions and contemporary challenges.”
Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki is a librarian, book and library historian specialising in research on monastery libraries and the history of library collections and old books. For many years, he has also been involved in the history of medicine and science, including the history of medical education in Bydgoszcz and the presence of Andreas Vesalius’s works, in particular De humani corporis fabrica, in Polish collections.
He is a graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He obtained his doctorate in humanities in 2000 at the University of Wrocław. Since 1995, he has been professionally associated with the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where he began working as an assistant, then as an assistant professor in the Department, and later at the Institute of Information and Communication Research (formerly: Department of Library Science and Information Science), developing his scientific and teaching activities in the field of book history and library science.
The researcher is the author of nearly 180 scientific and popular science publications, the main focus of which is research in the field of the history of old books, monastic libraries, special book collections, and the history of libraries, as well as biographical works devoted to outstanding figures in science, mainly medicine. His achievements include numerous interviews with professors of medicine, including two extensive, several-hundred-page interviews, which are an important source for research on the history of the academic medical community in Toruń and Bydgoszcz.
Since 2003, Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki, in parallel with his work at the Institute of Information and Communication Research at Nicolaus Copernicus University, served as director of the Main Library of the Medical Academy in Bydgoszcz, and then as director of the Medical Library of the Collegium Medicum at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Bydgoszcz. Between 2010 and 024, he was the director of the University Library in Toruń, where he implemented a wide-ranging programme of library infrastructure modernisation, including a thorough reconstruction and modernisation of the library building, the implementation of a new library system, restructuring and optimisation of employment, and the organisation and legal aspects of the unit’s functioning.
For 22 years, he has been the editor-in-chief of the university magazine “Wiadomości Akademickie”. He has been a member of many prestigious scientific and expert bodies, sitting on the Scientific Council of the National Library, the Scientific Council of the Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Scientific Council of the Cieszyn Library, the Scientific Council of the Chełmno Land Museum, and the Programme Council of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Heritage Centre in Toruń. Until 2024, he was a member of the Executive Council of the Conference of Directors of Academic Libraries of Polish Schools. Since 2024, he has also been a member of the Scientific Council of the “Polish Libraries” journal published by the National Library.
For many years, Dr Krzysztof Nierzwicki has been an expert advisor to the Minister of Science and Higher Education on the programmes “Social Responsibility of Science” and “Social Responsibility of Science II,” as well as an expert advisor to the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, including within the framework of the “Wsparcie Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów poza Krajem” (WABiM) programme and in the evaluation of the collections of the Polish Library in Rapperswil (Switzerland). He has also participated in the activities of the International Centre for Training and Research on Cultural Heritage in Danger organised by the Ministry of National Defence.
For 20 years, he has been a member of the prestigious Gutenberg Society in Mainz, which brings together researchers of old books. He has received over twenty awards from the Rector of Nicolaus Copernicus University, as well as distinctions from, among others, the marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship and the mayor of Kartuzy for his scientific, librarian, and organisational activities.