The Estonian Expatriate Literature Centre (EELC) at the Academic Library of Tallinn University has announced Sander Jürisson as new head of the department. Jürisson has a masters degree in modern history from the University of Tallinn, with a thesis on Estonian migration to Brazil. So far, Sander has been working in the same department as senior the bibliographer. Former head of EELC, Dr. Anne Valmas, will continue as a researcher.
EELC accumulates, stores and provides access to publications dealing with expatriate Estonian issues as well as titles printed abroad by expatriate Estonians since 1944. The collection originated in 1974, when a restricted access department was formed at the Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR in order to accumulate all the books forbidden to Estonians in their homeland during that period, as well as the titles authored and published by expatriate Estonians. For now, EELC has developed into the most complete collection of expatriate Estonian literature in Estonia with about 37,000 volumes, including 6000 titles of books and more than 500 titles of periodical publications issued abroad by Estonians. About one third of the holdings are unique copies in Estonia.