Óscar Arroyo will be the new director of the National Library of Spain, where he will take over from Ana Santos, who has headed the institution since 2013 and who announced her intention to retire last May. In a process initiated with Miquel Iceta, the Ministry of Culture of Ernest Urtasun has chosen the technical profile of Arroyo, current head of the Book, Archives and Libraries Service of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Castilla-La Mancha since 2011.
Four other candidates made up the final shortlist: Carmen Delibes Sennacheribbo, head of the library at the Cervantes Institute in Lisbon; Carme Fenoll, former head of the Library Service of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia and who was attacked by conservative media during the process for being "affiliated with the independence movement"; Juan Carlos Sánchez Olivares, library technician at the Ministry of Culture, and José Luis Bueren Gómez-Acebo, faculty member at the National Library, and second to Ana Santos. The ministry will report the selected candidacy to the Plenary Session of the Royal Board of Trustees, which will meet in the coming weeks and is headed by editor Daniel Fernández. Subsequently, it will be taken to the Council of Ministers for approval.
Óscar Arroyo from Madrid has a degree in Information and Documentation from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (2020) and a university diploma in Library Science and Documentation from the Complutense of Madrid (1996). An active career official of the Community Board of Castilla-La Mancha, belonging to the Higher Corps of Archives, Libraries and Museums, he was currently the head of the Book, Archives and Libraries Service of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. Previously, also in the Castilian-La Mancha autonomous administration, he was an advisor to Books and Libraries between 2007 and 2011; head of the Library Coordination Section from 2000 to 2007; and assistant technician of Archives and Libraries at the Library of Castilla-La Mancha (State Public Library in Toledo), from 1998 to 2000.
Among the functions and powers assumed in their different positions are the planning, technical responsibility and promotion of the Public Library Network of Castilla-La Mancha, with more than 450 spaces, and the Mobile Library Network; the coordination of the Library of Castilla-La Mancha, the five State Public Libraries and the five Provincial Historical Archives of Castilla-La Mancha; the drafting of legal regulations regarding libraries, historical archives and legal deposit; in addition to being responsible for the Collective Catalog of Bibliographic Heritage in Castilla-La Mancha, as well as its Digital Library and the Cultural Heritage Repository. He is the author of the study 'Universalizing public library services in Spain' (Fesabid, 2021), which he presented in the Senate in April 2022.
