Gloria Pérez-Salmerón

In 2021 she also received the medal of honor from the Spanish Federation of Associations of Archivists, Librarians, Archaeologists, Museologists and Documentalists (ANABAD) for being "an integral Librarian, because she has exercised her professional activity in all areas possible".

She was the President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in 2018 and has been President of the Spanish Federation of Societies of Archivist, Librarians, Documentalists and Museology (FESABID), and Vice President of EBLIDA, European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations.

In January 2012, the new government ratified Glòria Pérez-Salmerón in her role as Director of the National Library of Spain. On 18 February 2013, she was dismissed as Director of the National Library of Spain.

She also began a Strategic Plan for the 2012-2014 triennial, based on a programme with four main values: quality, austerity, coherence and permanent vocation.

As Director of the BNE, she elaborated and directed the activities to commemorate the institution’s tricentenary from the end of 2011 to the end of 2012, centred mainly on bringing citizens closer to the BNE. During her time as director she also established the drafting of the 29th of July 23/2011 law, the legal deposit and studied and initiated the drafting of the Royal Decree of Legal Digital Deposits as well as creating the National Repository which holds these.

At the end of 2011, the BNE incorporated the World Digital Library, contributing with some of the most important works of its collections. She launched the BNE 2.0 intranet as a horizontal communication tool and the library’s Museum activities, and improved the BNE’s presence on the Internet via its website and social media.

Glòria Pérez-Salmerón is also Vice President of the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA) and member of the Management Committee of The European Library (TEL). In July 2010 she was elected Director of the National Library of Spain, a proposal made by the then Minister of Culture Ángeles González-Sinde, after consulting the Board of Trustees of the National Library. Ángeles González-Sinde emphasised her experience in digitalisation projects and stated that she was the perfect person to see the Library “through the transition from analogue to digital”.

In 2008, she was elected President of the Spanish Federation of Societies of Archivist, Librarians, Documentalists and Museology (FESABID), a position she held until September 2010, whilst she was Head of the Office of Assistance in Electronic Administration at the Diputació de Barcelona in which she managed, amongst other duties, the municipal register of 268 municipalities of the province of Barcelona, “the adaptation to the LOPD (Data Protection Act), the technological development of the OACs (Citizen’s Attention Offices) and the design and maintenance of the municipal websites if the province of Barcelona.

Under Pérez-Salmerón's management, the BNE developed a project of systematic digitalization of holdings, thanks to a partnership agreement with Telefónica – it foresaw the digitalization of 200,000 book titles between 2008 and 2012. In those two years, the Iberian American Digital Library (BDPI) project also flourished and became a reality in October 2012, during the Association of National Libraries’ (ABINIA) General Assembly, with the creation of an access portal to the collections of the American digital libraries.

Between 2001 and 2005, she was appointed Technical Director of the Network of Municipal Libraries of the Diputació de Barcelona. In 2005 she became Head of Library Cooperation Service of the Department of Culture and Media at the Generalitat de Catalunya, from which she coordinated the Library System of Catalonia.

Between 1992 and 2001, Pérez-Salmerón served as the first director of the Casacuberta Central Urban Library of Badalona, coordinator of the libraries in the north of the Barcelonés municipality and delegate at the UNET (UNESCO Model Library Network).

Glòria Pérez-Salmerón (born 5 April 1958, Barcelona) is the Stichting IFLA Global Libraries Chair from August 30, 2019 and was Director of the National Library of Spain (BNE). She was President of the Spanish Federation of Societies of Archivists, Librarians, Documentalists and Museology (FESABID) from 2014 to 2018 and from 2017 to 2019 President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).

Glòria Pérez-Salmerón was born in Barcelona in 1958. She graduated in Documentation at Escola Universitaria Jordi Rubió i Balaguer in Barcelona and has a postgraduate diploma in Librarianship from the Barcelona University Faculty of Librarianship and Information Sciences. She received a postgraduate degree in "Library Management" from the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona; as well as in “Government and Public Management in the Information Society: Electronic Government”, from the Pompeu Fabra University and the Escola d’Administració Pública de Catalunya.