CERL Internships 2025 – Museum Plantin-Moretus
By Laura Semlič Thanks to the support of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), I had the exciting opportunity to spend nearly five months at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, working on their collection of incunables. The first…
Dunblane’s historic Leighton Library today played host to students from University of Stirling looking at early modern printing & binding, led by Dr Kelsey Jackson Williams (Associate Professor in English Studies at University of Stirling & Director of Pathfoot Press
JOB ALERT! 📜📚
Who wants to be director & curator of special collections & archives at Middlebury College (Vermont!) — & work for a wonderful boss (& one of my favorite people), Rebekah Irwin?
apply.workable.com/middleburyco...
A selection of books form the Fagel Collection
TCD Library is recruiting a Senior Bibliographer to help catalogue the Fagel Collection! This is a fabulous professional opportunity to work on one of Europe's great early modern private libraries. Closing 10 March at noon. Full details available at www.tcd.ie/hr/vacancies
CERL Internships 2025 – Blickling Hall, National Trust
By Carmen Oanea, PhD student in Book History at the Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania My name is Carmen Oanea and I am a PhD student in Book History at the Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai University,…
CERL internships 2025 – Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, Ireland
Notes on the Provenance of the Haliday Pamphlet and Tract Collections By Madeline Birnbaum, Assistant Archivist at the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, Massachusetts. For four weeks in September of 2025, I was able…
Erasmus+ Traineeship grant 2025 – National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum
By Debora Sturzo Thanks to the mediation of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) and the support of the Erasmus+ Traineeship grant, I was able to carry out a three-month internship at the…
The British Library's new catalogue has a snappy URL for anyone wanting to search for medieval (western) manuscripts:
searcharchives.bl.uk?f%5Bcollecti...
Shelfmark searching only works with 'MS' between the collection name (which must be written in full, with the exception of 'Add') and number.
CERL Internships 2025: Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation
by Jemima Bennett, PhD candidate – University of Kent/Bodleian Libraries For four weeks in September and October 2025, I had the amazing opportunity, as a CERL grantee, to work with the incunables at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in…
Presenting the Crossing Borders publication to former CERL Chairman, Dr Ann Matheson
CERL was officially registered as a company on 24 June 1994. We celebrated our tenth anniversary at the National Library of Scotland in 2004 and were extremely pleased to be able to return to Edinburgh for our…
Join me @rarebookschool.bsky.social for an intensive week of Latin Paleography, June 1-5 in Charlottesville. Paleography doesn't have to be scary. Trust me...we'll have a blast! Application portal is now open. rarebookschool.org/courses/manu...
CERL internships 2025 – Huntington Library
Studying the 'life' of Spanish incunabula at Huntington Library (San Marino, California) By Iván Pérez Marinas Huntington Library, San Marino, California Hola! My name is Iván Pérez Marinas, Curator of Manuscripts and Incunabula at the National Library of…
📢 New on our YouTube channel:
Maria Ruiz Fargas & Laia Navarro de Llobet explore cataloguing provenance at UB’s CRAI Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
🎥 Watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlnN...
#bookhistory
Poster for CERL seminar on Founding Collections (at the Guildhall, London on 5 December 2025)
Join us for this hybrid event on Founding Collections, taking place on 5 December 2025 and hosted by the @guildhalllibrary.bsky.social
Programme and registration details on www.cerl.org/services/sem...
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
In this latest blogpost at CERL, Tomás de Brito introduces Argentina's Ediciones Ampersand to fellow CERL members.
Conference poster CERL Seminar on Founding Collection at NLS Edinburgh on 20 October 2025
Really looking forward to the CERL annual seminar tomorrow. This year on Founding Collections and hosted by the wonderful National Library of Scotland. Such a joy to be back in Edinburgh, getting to hang out with friends old and new
www.cerl.org/services/sem...
NOS/Nieuwsuur maakte vorige week een alarmistisch item over onvrije debatcultuur aan Nederlandse universiteiten. Mirko Tobias Schäfer en ik schreven er een opiniestuk over: 'Dat de academische vrijheid onder druk staat, komt niet door linkse cancelcultuur.'
dub.uu.nl/nl/opinie/un...
Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Tomáš Klimek of the National Library of the Czech Republic marks the 900th anniversary of the death of the Czech chronicler Cosmas, with new research, an exhibition and a catalogue - all coming out this year.
Dr Sarah Griffin of Lambeth Palace Library describes their experiences with a workshop that introduced children to medieval folded calendars
The Democratization of Library Heritage Collections
By Louise Amazan, Daryl Green & Garrelt Verhoeven (IFLA RBSC) Introduction On April 24th 2025 the Standing Committee for Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) of IFLA and CERL’s Bookbinding group joined together for a seminar at the…
CERL - Consortium of European Research Libraries - is now on Blue Sky.
Our mission is to connect European book heritage with the world.
Expect to see news on rare books, manuscripts and events from our community.
www.cerl.org
Give us a follow!
Where do European early imprints pop up? Attend this online seminar and find out! Please obtain your zoom link from secretariat@cerl.org
We published the papers of the first RNB conference:
Never Finish(ed)
The Vitality and Dynamics of Retrospective ‘National’ Bibliographies for European Print Cultures to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. DOI: 10.13173/9783447123563
Free download: www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/titel_8452.a...
The next CERL event is only a month away! I warmly invite you to come to KBR Brussels for
Mapping Knowledge: Collaboration of Retrospective National Bibliograhies with research and heritage projects
The programme is here: www.cerl.org/services/sem...
We aim to publish the papers
I'm looking forward to discussing 'What can heritage do for society in the future?' at the '20 years of Sustainable Heritage at UCL' celebration on June 12
Some tickets still available www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/eve...
Electronic Legal Deposit materials are back online in 5 legal deposit reading rooms after the British Library cyberattack! Hurrah. But not in London yet. ICYDK, this encompasses vast swathes of modern digital texts including journal papers & books, & other media. Great to see it back!
The English Short Title Catalogue is back online #ESTC datb.cerl.org/estc
Very true. And it's a sector with high economic benefits. Universities UK report an economic impact of £158bn, or £265bn including the impact of international students. Every £1 of public money invested into UK universities generates £14 of economic benefit. www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/news/...
