The new director of the National Library will be Tomáš Böhm

Prague - The new head of the National Library (NK) will be former general director and board member of the Ringier publishing house, Tomáš Böhm. On Wednesday, he was recommended by the selection committee. Minister Jiří Besser (for TOP 09) is determined to respect the committee's recommendation, said ministry spokesman Stanislav Brunclík. The minister will appoint Böhm in the coming days, and he should assume office on January 1, 2011.
    The newly selected director stated that he will review all disputed investment projects of the NK and does not rule out the possibility of re-evaluating some decisions made by the former management. The library has been criticized for the costly renovation of its premises, the Baroque Klementinum.
    "It is necessary to very quickly verify the investment steps taken by the National Library and to dispel certain suspicions that have arisen in the media. I am prepared for this and assure everyone that I have experience in this regard," said Tomáš Böhm in an interview for the ministry's website.
    "Such an experienced manager is a certain guarantee for me that everything will run economically as it should, and I firmly believe that I have made the right choice," said Minister Besser at the same time.
    The committee positively assessed Böhm's managerial skills but pointed out his shortcomings in professional library knowledge. Böhm intends to resolve this by surrounding himself with a quality team. He also aims to restore the library's advisory board and to further open the institution to the public.
    The renovation of the Klementinum, along with the construction of the Hostivař depositories, is expected to cost approximately three billion crowns. According to some media, the library's management has not yet demonstrated that it has a comprehensive budget prepared for the renovation.
    The construction suppliers are the companies Metrostav and Arstav. Architects have complained that a proper architectural competition was not held for the renovation. Some people are also bothered by the fact that the renovation likely definitively buried hopes for the construction of a new building according to the design by architect Jan Kaplický.
    Four candidates applied for the selection process. Among them were former head of the library department at the Ministry of Culture Blanka Koubová, former secretary of the Czech Booksellers and Publishers Association and current editor-in-chief of the magazine Grand Biblio Jaroslav Císař, and architect Eva Heyworth. The current director Pavel Hazuka did not apply.
    Nine people served on the selection committee - deputies Radek Zdráhal and Michaela Vojtová, minister's advisor Hana Červenková, Zdeněk Jirek from the internal administration and investment department, Marek Kupsa from the strategy and grant policy department, director of the Academy of Sciences Library Martin Lhoták, director of the Parliamentary Library Karel Sosna, director of the National Technical Library Martin Svoboda, and chairman of the Association of Librarians and Information Workers of the Czech Republic Vít Richter.
    Based on interviews, the committee selected two candidates for the second round - Císař and Böhm. Císař was liked for his expertise but did not convince them with his managerial skills.
    "Probably, the fact that the National Library is currently drawing hundreds of millions in investments for the renovation of the Klementinum and that further extensive investments are still awaited played a role. Managerial experience is, of course, a huge advantage in such a situation," said the Ministry of Culture on its website.
    The final vote of the committee was ultimately unanimous, with nine out of nine voting for manager Böhm.
    Böhm (1961) is a graduate of the University of Economics in Prague, having also studied in London. In the 1990s, he worked in several companies as a consultant and later as a financial director of Creditanstalt Securities. At the turn of the millennium, he became the financial director of Ringier CR, where he served as a board member. From 2001 he led the company for five years. In recent years, he has focused on economic consulting, crisis management, and media consulting in the field of print media and book production.
    Due to the case surrounding Kaplický's project, Minister of Culture Václav Jehlička (then KDU-ČSL) dismissed the then director of the NK Vlastimil Ježek in September 2008. Without a selection process, he was replaced by the head of the Memorial of National Literature Pavel Hazuka.

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Tomáš Böhm
* March 19, 1961

Education: graduated from the University of Economics in Prague (1984), also completed studies in economics at the University of London in Great Britain (1991)
Career: after school, he held economic positions in several companies, among others, he was a board member of the company operating fast-food restaurants KFC in the Czech Republic or financial director of the brokerage Creditanstalt Securities; in August 1998, he joined the Ringier publishing house, where he spent two years as financial director and then led the publishing house's magazine division until 2001, in March 2001 he became the general director of Ringier, from which he left in November 2006; previously, for example, he ran his own company focused on media consulting
Others:
- last year, he participated in the competition for the new director of the Prague Zoo
- he also served on the board of the Union of Daily Press Publishers, and at the beginning of 2007, he became the president of its board of directors.