Serageldin Joins Wilson Center Celebration of James Billington’s Achievements
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The Wilson Center invited Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the BA, to join a panel of distinguished speakers in celebrating the contributions of Dr. James Billington—professor, author, Director of the Wilson Center and co-founder of the Kennan Institute, founder of the Open World Leadership Center, and recently retired Librarian of Congress.
Billington and Serageldin have worked closely together for many years, especially on the World Digital Library project, and are also longtime friends.
Other speakers who also paid tribute to Billington were James F. Collins , Diplomat in Residence and Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment; Vartan Gregorian , President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York; Jane Harman, Director and CEO of the Wilson Center; Blair A. Ruble, Vice President for Programs at the Kennan Institute.
Billington was nominated to serve as Librarian of Congress by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and was unanimously approved by the U.S Senate. During his tenure, he more than doubled the Library’s traditional collections and embarked on an ambitious path to digitize and provide electronic access to the Library’s collections, including its visual and audio resources. He was recently designated as the Librarian of Congress Emeritus, and is only the third person given this title by the U.S Congress.