Dr. Torsten Reimer (he/him)

With well over twenty years in higher education, library and information management and digital innovation, I am working to build a better information environment that serves everyone.

Current role

Currently, I am Head of Content and Research Services at the British Library. Reporting to the Chief Librarian, I am responsible for ensuring that our contemporary collections and research services meet the needs of knowledge seekers and research organisations from the UK and abroard.

The teams that form the Content and Research Services department include functions such as: user research and engagement with our research audience, and translating that understanding into the development and implementation of the Library's Content Strategy and Research Services Strategy; content acquisitions and processing of print and digital content coming into the British Library, including legal deposit; preservation and management of our petabyte-scale digital collections; our team of dedicated subject librarians; digital research services ranging from content discovery to repositories, scholarly communications and research data, including the UK DataCite consortium; the redevelopment of the BL's digital library system; and a strategic change management portfolio to modernise our online and onsite research services, including the reading rooms. In addition, I am the Library’s strategic expert for scholarly communications and alternative publishing models.

Previous roles

Before joining the British Library, I oversaw the development of open access and research data services at Imperial College London. At Jisc, the UK's digital service provider for higher and further education, I was Programme Manager for digital infrastructure, managing programmes and innovation projects across the UK, including multi-million pound services such as the National Grid Service and the National Centre for Text Mining.

My background is in history, with a PhD from the University of Munich (LMU), and digital humanities and scholarly communications. At LMU I co-founded digital library services in the late 90s that today receive federal funding as part of the national information infrastructure of Germany. At King's College London, I was senior coordinator for a national network on digital research methods in the arts and humanities, and I developed digital community services and infrastructures at the Centre for E-Research.

External and community roles

Over the years, I have engaged with a range of communities and external organisations. Some of my current and recent activities include:

Talks and Keynotes

I regularly speak about information management, library services and topics such as scholarly communications and research infrastructures. Recent talks include: