09:30 Registration with coffee
10:00 Welcome

• Claudia Fabian, CERL Chair
• Representatives of the Guildhall and the CERL London Libraries Group

Panel 1 Moderator: TBC
10:15 Melanie Strong – Guildhall
10:45 Irini Solomonidi – Joannes Gennadius and the Internationality of Hellenism: The Legacy of a Founding Collection
11:15 Karen Attar – Maths and Classics, 1871-2025: The University of London Library’s Founding Collections
11:45 Renaud Milazzo – From Seminary Library to Research Hub: The Venerable English College in Rome and the Making of a Transnational Catholic Collection.

12:15-13:15 Lunch

Panel 2 Moderator: Charlotte Murphey (CERL)
13:15 Duncan Speight – “A treasure not fit for every man’s view”: the expanding role of Lincoln’s Inn Library
13:45 Roman Koot – Leeskabinet Rotterdam
14:15 Julianne Simpson – Chetham’s Library

14:45-15:15 Tea break

Panel 3 Moderator: Julia King, Lambeth Palace
15:15 Giles Mandelbrot – Warburg Institute
15:45 Katharina Kaska – Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
16:15 TBC:
16:45 Tim Pye - ‘Used for library purposes’ – the origin of the National Trust as a library organisation
17:15-17:30 Concluding remarks by Julia King

17:30 Drinks reception - generously sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association
19:00/19:30 Informal dinner (at participants' own expense)

Duncan Speight

• Abstract: Lincoln’s Inn Library (as a collection, rather than a building) is the oldest law library in the country and the oldest library in London, extending back to 1475. The Inns of Court are often characterised as “the third university” during the early modern period and developed collections more in line with an Oxbridge college library rather than concentrating on black letter law. The bequest of Matthew Hale’s collection of manuscripts in 1676 provided the foundation for the Inn’s superlative manuscript collection, now extending to over 1,000 items. The C19th saw further generous bequests and donations in addition to the Inn purchasing extensively from the auction sales of major collections. In the late C19th, the Inn decided to concentrate on its legal collections to provide a comprehensive library for practising barristers and Bar students. It also developed significant holdings for other Common Law jurisdictions, a reflection of the strong links between the Inn and the legal profession in other countries. This paper will discuss how the Library balances the provision of an up-to-date legal information service with supporting access for researchers to the historical collections and wider access to unique items in the collection via digitisation and exhibitions.
  
• Biography: Dunstan Speight is the Librarian of Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court. Prior to joining the Inn in 2016, he worked in City law firm libraries, the Law Society of England and Wales and the Middle Temple. At the Inn he is responsible for the Inn’s library, archives and art collection.
  

Irini Solomonidi

• Abstract: The Gennadius Library—at once the creation and enduring legacy of Greek diplomat and bibliophile Joannes Gennadius (1844–1932)—offers a compelling case study in how a founding collection can shape the identity of a research institution over time. Conceived from the outset as a gift to the international scholarly world and formally donated in 1922 to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Library was also a tribute to his father, Georgios Gennadius, an esteemed educator and key figure in the Greek War of Independence. It embodied a principle of openness rooted in Joannes Gennadius’s intellectual cosmopolitanism and classical education, echoing Isocrates’ Panegyricus, in which “Greeks are called those who share in our education.” The core of the Library remains the collection Gennadius personally assembled: a bibliographic portrait of Hellenism across antiquity, Byzantium, and the modern era, informed by national vision and shaped by diplomacy, erudition, and chance. This founding core has shaped not only the Library’s origins but also its evolution and growth. While the identity of the Library is deeply rooted in Joannes Gennadius’s vision, it continues to evolve, responding to new scholarly priorities, acquisitions, and forms of engagement. As perspectives shift, the collection invites critical reappraisal: contemporary approaches to material culture, identity, and memory allow us to read it anew, revealing not only its enduring relevance but also its silences, tensions, and potential. This paper explores the foundational role of the Joannes Gennadius Collection as both substance and symbol of the institution that bears his name.
• Biography: Irini Solomonidi joined the staff of Gennadius Library in August 2005 where she is the Senior Librarian. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Philology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA). Her academic interests lie in the book history and Medieval French and Byzantine literature. While working at many prestigious academic libraries in Paris (the École Normale Supérieure, the Library of the University of Paris X-Nanterre, the Library of Byzantine Studies at the Collège de France, and the Medical Research Library of the University of Paris VII), Solomonidi earned a library degree from the University of Paris V – René Descartes. She has also attended specialized seminars at the Virginia Rare Book School, the London Rare Book School, the Centre du Conservation du Livre in Arles, the Institut d’histoire du livre in Lyon and Oxford University (CERL workshop and seminars). She has curated exhibitions and presented and published conference papers focusing on the history of the book, drawing on the collections of the Gennadius Library.

Karen Attar

• Abstract: Senate House Library, University of London, has two founding collections (1871): the chiefly mathematical library of the mathematician and mathematical historian Augustus De Morgan, and the primarily classical library of George Grote, historian of ancient Greece. The earliest cluster of books to enter the University, a much smaller German theological collection, was given in 1838, and the first point of this paper is to explain why the De Morgan and Grote collections, and not the Vye books, constitute the founding collection. The paper will continue to describe the two collections briefly, and how and why they came. From there it will trace the Library’s custody of the two sets of books to make them relevant for twenty-first-century research interests. The De Morgan Library is held together as a named special collection which has received a fair amount of attention, albeit in ways and for reasons outside the niche area of their subject matter. Grote’s books are less prominent, and a major point of the paper is to explore and analyse the difference in treatment between the two.
• Biography: Dr Karen Attar is the Curator of Rare Books and University Art at Senate House Library, University of London (formerly known as the University of London Library). Best known as the editor of the third edition of the Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (2016), she has published widely on library collections.

Renaud Milazzo

• Abstract: Founded in 1579 to train English priests in exile, the Venerable English College in Rome developed a library and archival collection that reflect both the intellectual ambitions and the political circumstances of post-Reformation Catholicism. Far from being a mere seminary library, its holdings grew through donations from English and continental patrons, forming a corpus that bridges theology, philosophy, history, and literature. This paper explores the evolution of the College’s library and archives as instruments of religious formation, scholarly exchange, and institutional memory. Drawing on recent cataloguing and digitisation initiatives, it reconsiders the role of this collection within the broader landscape of early modern Catholic print culture and transnational networks of learning. It also reflects on current efforts to transform the library into a modern research centre, balancing preservation, accessibility, and engagement with scholars and seminarians alike. By tracing the changing identity of the English College library—from a missionary and pedagogical tool to a centre for interdisciplinary research—this presentation seeks to highlight how ecclesiastical collections can serve as both repositories of confessional heritage and active participants in contemporary scholarship.
• Biography:

Tim Pye

• Abstract: Although some of the National Trust’s heritage libraries have histories stretching back to the medieval period, the organisation itself has only been active since 1895. Over the course of its existence, it has grown to become a major holder of over one million cultural objects, with its holdings of paintings and furniture usually considered to be the jewels in its crown. The 400,000 books in its care were, for a long time, considered to be a considerable burden and prized primarily for their decorative quality. With the instalment of its first permanent librarian in 1999, the Trust finally became something approaching a serious library organisation. However, recent research has revealed that the founders of the National Trust, in its earliest days, saw the organisation’s remit and purpose as something akin to the public library movement, spearheaded by Carnegie funding, which was in full flow at the turn of the 20th century. The Trust’s earliest property acquisitions were informed by this movement and the first objects that entered the Trust’s care in 1909 were books, in part funded by Andrew Carnegie, and intended to be available for use by the local community.
• Biography: Tim Pye is National Curator for Libraries at the National Trust. He is the strategic lead for the charity’s library collections, with oversight of the 200+ historic book collections in the Trust’s care, and co-author of the 2023 publication, 100 Books From the Libraries of the National Trust. He has previously worked at the British Library, Cambridge University Library and Lambeth Palace Library.