Rafael Ball has been Director of ETH-Library Zuerich , Switzerland, since March 2015. He holds doctorates in biology and science history and studied biology, Slavonic studies and philosophy at the Universities of Mainz, Warsaw and Moscow. He completed a two-year postgraduate qualification as a scientific librarian in 1996 and was head of Central Library in the Research Center Juelich, Germany from 1996 to 2008. Ball was Director of the University Library of Regensburg from 2008 to 2015. He has written and edited numerous publications, and is a dedicated speaker and a lecturer at various universities. His main work and research interests are the library of the future, science communication and scientometrics and the role of the printed book in the digital age