Working Groups focus on specific areas of CERL's activities, and draw their membership from professionals across Europe. New members are always welcome, and interested persons should write to CERL's Secretary, Cristina Dondi at: c.dondi@cerl.org. The working groups report back to the Executive Committee twice a year.
CERL has set up a range of working groups. There are working groups related to specific CERL databases, such as the HPB Working Group and the CERL Thesaurus Working Group.
Other Working Groups concentrate on specific themes related to our historical library collections, where they act as forums for experts in the field to confer and collaborate. The Working Groups are the Incunabula Working Group, the Provenance Working Group, the Book Binding Working Group, the Manuscripts Librarians Working Group, and the CERL Collection Security Working Group, which coordinates information about on-going security issues of relevance for collections within the scope of CERL and monitors and disseminates information on emerging methods and technologies in library crime prevention and detection.
In 2021, CERL created a Cultural Property Working Group, and in 2022 the Retrospective Bibliographies Working Group.
Two Working Groups work with CERL to formulate the best startegic approach, namely the CERL Engagement and Promotion Working Group, and the Digital Humanities Working Group.
At the Executive Committee and Annual General Meetings which took place in Warsaw in October 2013, it was agreed to establish one CERL Grant every year, of the value of 1,000 Euros, to allow qualified librarians and scholars to work on CERL projects in CERL libraries, or in CERL offices, and to be trained on CERL databases, generally for a period of one month.
CERL now works with LIBER in the Working Group for Digital Humanities and Digital Cultural Heritage.
Previously collaboration took place in the LIBER Forum of Digital Cultural Heritage (and before that the LIBER Steering Committee for Heritage Collections and Preservation), both co-coordinated with CERL.
Manutius Network was dedicated to the events for the celebrations of the fifth centenary of Aldus’s death, and aimed to provide a comprehensive picture of the conferences, seminars and exhibitions in honour of Aldus, the Aldine press and its books taking place throughout the world. As the information collected continues to be of interest, it is archived here.
CERL is keen to be involved in European projects. As well as being examples of best practice they bring benefits to our members in the large degree of collaboration with other institutions that is involved. Follow the links to read about past project involvement. Current projects that CERL is involved in are always reported at our AGM, and written about in the latest edition of the CERL Newsletter.