Randa Al Chidiac is the Executive Director of the Library at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), Lebanon. Randa has been in the University since 2012, where she is responsible for the strategic planning, management and administration of library resources and services, as well as the Centre for Written Heritage Conservation and the Centre for Reprography and Digitization. Prior to this position, she was the E-Resources Librarian at the University of Balamand, Lebanon.

Randa has attended numerous conferences where she has presented papers, webinar sessions and workshops on various subjects, such as negotiating licences for databases, digital resources and consortia, library management, academic integrity, special collections and projects of the USEK Library and building strong library associations.

Being a librarian and in her role as President of the Lebanese Library Association (LLA) for two terms, Randa is dedicated to raising the professional and social standing of librarians and information workers in Lebanon. She would like to put more effort into making other librarians in the region better equipped to deal with issues in management and leadership. Another issue she would like to tackle is building a positive and strong image of the profession with the general public and commercial sector to make people aware of the important role of librarians.

Randa is also on the Standing Committee on the Management of Library Associations Section in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and is a member of the academic network of PlagiarismAdvice.org, where her latest challenge is to find ways to instigate a debate on academic integrity and apply effective methods by training both faculty and students in order to minimize the errors that occur in academic writing. She is very interested in challenging the problems arising from the lack of academic integrity, the increase of plagiarism and the weakness of copyright laws, both nationally and regionally.

Randa is very proud of being a daughter of Becharré, a town located high in the mountains of Lebanon under the high cedar trees. This is the hometown of Gibran Khalil Gibran, the renowned artist, poet and writer – author of The Prophet. Her favourite pastime is swimming, especially when the Mediterranean sun is shining high above. She also enjoys travelling and visiting new places, meeting people, experiencing their culture and trying different cuisines.