Handing over the Baton in the Library

Having worked at TU Graz since 1992, Ulrike Krießmann took over as head of the Library and Archives OU in summer 2015. A central focus of the past ten years has been the expansion of research support services. One milestone – and ‘there were many milestones’, says a smiling Krießmann – was the introduction of the research information system Pure, which replaced the previous publication database in TUGRAZonline and brought with it numerous advantages such as the simple import and export of data.

Open access has also been a key topic in recent years. On the one hand, read-and-publish agreements were concluded with selected publishers to enable researchers not only to access research papers free of charge, but also to publish them free of charge. On the other hand, TU Graz has had a publication fund since 2016 to make open access publishing easier for researchers with publishers with whom there is no corresponding contract.

„There were many milestones.“
Ulrike Krießmann

Behind the scenes, the switch to a cloud-based library system took place in 2019 – just in time before the drastic changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. Other milestones: In 2022, the Research Data Management team was transferred from a project to the library's regular operations, and in the same year the Architekturarchiv Steiermark was opened.

One key area was also on teaching information literacy, the focus of which has changed considerably in recent years due to the increased use of e-resources. As an illustration, last year, 3.8 million articles from the library's collection were downloaded digitally!

At the end of September 2025, Ulrike Krießmann took her well-earned retirement and handed over the management of the Library and Archives OU to her successor David Frank.

New head of the Library and Archives

‘Graz is such a great city,’ says David Frank enthusiastically about his new home. He has been working at TU Graz since August to prepare a seamless handover together with Ulrike Krießmann. Frank has been the new head of the Library and Archives OU since 1 October 2025.

David Frank graduated from the Library and Information Management programme at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. After working for an information service provider, Frank moved to Vienna almost twenty years ago, where he worked as deputy head librarian at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and at the Central European University before moving to TU Graz.

„We are facing new tasks and challenges.“
David Frank

‘We are facing new tasks and challenges,’ says Frank with conviction. He sees open science and artificial intelligence in particular as a defining theme for the coming years. ‘Open science is here to stay and will change science in the long term and pave the way for a new research culture.’ It remains exciting to see what future milestones lie ahead for the Library and Archives OU, and not just in the context of open science.

The TU Graz library provides media at all three campus locations – but its services go far beyond that. TU Graz people accompanied the team of the Library and Archives OU for one day in September: A day in ... the Library and Archives

You can find this article and other articles to browse through in TU Graz people #94, the magazine for TU Graz employees and interested parties.