Meet Martine Pronk, WUR's new head librarian
What role should the Library play in today’s research and education at WUR? Martine Pronk, the newly appointed head librarian, shares her vision, first impressions, and what drives her in this new role.
Martine Pronk began as head librarian on 1 March 2026, making her the first woman to hold this role at WUR. She brings extensive experience in libraries and management, along with a fresh, analytical perspective. ‘As an anthropologist, I learned to approach different perspectives equally and to view issues from multiple angles,’ she says. With additional training in Public and Non-Profit Management and experience at public libraries, Utrecht University Library, and LIBER, she knows the field inside out.
The role of the library: continuity and change
Martine is passionate about libraries. She believes the core role of libraries has remained remarkably consistent over time, and that libraries have proven to be an important and much-needed partner in academia: ‘Libraries ensure that scientific knowledge is available, accessible and reusable, now and in the future. Where it used to be mainly about physical collections, the emphasis is now on digital information and a wide range of academic output. While digital transformation has changed how this is done, the fundamental mission is largely the same: keeping knowledge sustainably available, findable, accessible and reusable’.
WUR Library within Digital & Information Services
Over the coming period, Martine will play a key role in shaping the new organisational unit, Digital & Information Services. This division brings together several departments formerly part of Services and Facilities, positioning digital information services more strategically within WUR. ‘My role is to ensure that the library’s core expertise and services are firmly anchored in this new organisation,’ she says. She also wants to focus on integrating the Document Management team (currently part of Document Management & Logistics) into the Library as a fully-fledged team.
Long-term perspective
With the rapid changes in the information and publishing landscape, the importance of the Library as a strategic partner to the WUR community is now more important than ever. Martine emphasises that the university needs a party that looks further ahead than the issues of the day. ‘Librarians are used to looking 20 or even 50 years ahead. We make sure that research results can still be found and used not only today, but also in fifty years. It's not just about publishing open access and granting access today, but also about findability and usability in the future’, she adds.
Trusted data for AI
AI is reshaping the research landscape, redefining how knowledge is found, organised, and communicated. Martine sees the Library as a key player in this shift. ‘We need to ensure that AI is used responsibly and ethically while safeguarding trusted knowledge. For this, open, rich and validated metadata are crucial,’ according to Martine. Especially in the age of GenAI, information should be accessible not only to humans but also to machine learning models in her vision. After all, AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. ‘The challenge is not whether to engage with AI, but how to do so responsibly. Libraries have an important role to play here: making reliable knowledge available, validating information and contributing to a strong, broad knowledge base for AI applications’.
At the same time, the Library has an equally important role to play on the user side. As Martine puts it, this involves ‘integrating AI into information skills: helping users to critically engage with AI output and assess the quality of generated information. It’s great to see that the Library is already on top of this’.
‘Everyone deserves a good day’
In her first weeks at WUR, Martine observed how highly the library is valued within the organisation. ‘Maintaining and strengthening that high standard is an important task for me,’ she says. Each time she visits the Forum Library, she is pleased to see it filled with students. She recognises the important role the physical library plays in the campus experience; ‘students benefit from studying alongside one another, as it helps motivate and stimulate their learning’.
As a manager, my motto is that everyone deserves a good day, both students and staff,’ she adds. ‘I hope to help create many good days for the Library team, the community we serve and for the students who use our spaces.’
This article is based on a recent talk with Martine Pronk by Valerie Toebes and Annemieke Sweere.
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