CERL Internship and Placement Grant

CERL INTERNSHIP and PLACEMENT GRANTS

Every year, CERL offers Internship and Placement Grants, to the value of 1,000 Euros each, 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.

In particular, CERL is looking to support people new to the profession, whether in librarianship or in academia, and to facilitate international mobility.

CERL member libraries propose projects suitable to the CERL Grant. The internship should normally take place within the period January-October.

CERL’s Grants Sub-Committee (Cristina Dondi, Anders Toftgaard)

CERL 2025 INTERNSHIP and PLACEMENT GRANTS Deadline: 4 April 2025

CERL would like to offer six 2025 Internship and Placement Grants, to the value of 1,000 Euros each, to allow qualified librarians and scholars to work on CERL projects in CERL libraries, or in CERL offices, to be trained on, and contribute to, CERL digital resources, and to participate in CERL’s Working Groups, generally for a period of one month. If matched funding or support in kind are provided by the hosting institution, the period can be extended. In particular, CERL is looking to support people new to the profession, whether in librarianship or in academia, and to facilitate international mobility.

All internships should take place before the end of December 2025.

CERL asked its member libraries to propose projects suitable to the CERL Grant. This grant can only be assigned once to the same person. Applications not selected but positively vetted will be notified that they can be put in again for the next round. A written report for the CERL webpage, Newsletter, blog, and/or a presentation in person will be expected at the end of the internship/placement.

CERL’s Grants Sub-Committee

INTERNSHIPS OFFERED BY MEMBER LIBRARIES AND CERL

1. Incunabula at the Huntington Library, San Marino California – in person, 1 month The Huntington Library—set among botanical gardens on a two-hundred-acre estate in San Marino, California—is one of the world’s great independent research libraries. With approximately eleven million items spanning the 11th to 21st centuries, The Huntington annually serves the research needs of over 1,800 readers from thirty different countries, who create a lively and diverse scholarly culture. The Library’s distinguished holdings include over 5,200 incunabula—the second-largest such collection in the United States. Assembled through a combination of discriminating individual selections and bold en-bloc purchases, the books cover the map of 15th-century printing. They are especially rich in Italian and German imprints but also include rarities from England and the Iberian Peninsula. The Huntington incunabula constitute one of the cornerstones of Bookbindings on Incunables: The Scott Husby Database at Princeton University, which revealed that nearly a quarter of the books retain contemporary bindings. The Huntington is offering a one-month internship to create records of its incunabula in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database. The internship will be supervised by Stephen Tabor, Curator of Rare Books at the Huntington. With support from the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), The Huntington is offering a stipend of $3,500 for the month, with the intern bearing the travel cost from the funding. Non-U.S. nationals need to apply for a J-1 visa. and the stipend will be subject to withholding taxes of approximately 21%. See https://huntington.org/information-new-fellows for information regarding refunds. The Huntington maintains an exchange visitor program through the United States Department of State and will assist fellows with providing the appropriate paperwork.

Requirements: Good knowledge of Latin; fluency in written English; palaeographical skills that can be specialized in a geo-cultural region and may influence the parts of the collection to be assigned; bibliographical training in rare books is preferred.

2. Incunabula at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Piraeus, Greece – in person, 1 month

The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation invites applications for a one-month internship to work on its ever-growing incunabula collection. The Foundation holds the largest private collection of incunables in Greece, featuring 165 items, which focuses on works of Greek interest, including original texts and translations, alongside liturgical texts and examples of early Western literature. This internship provides an opportunity to work in person with the Historical Library team in cataloguing incunables, and identifying and documenting material evidence. The aim of the internship is to create new records in the MEI database, enrich existing records and provide photographic evidence of provenance marks in the PDA database. The internship duration is one month (except July/August), for which the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation will offer free housing in Piraeus, near its premises. Requirements: Good knowledge of English; preferred knowledge of Latin and Greek; preferred knowledge of Latin/Greek palaeography; knowledge of incunabula/early printed books and bibliography.

3. Incunabula at the Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp – in person, 1 month (Autumn 2025) The Museum Plantin-Moretus preserves 172 incunabula, which have been described in the online library catalogue. 47 copies printed in the Southern Netherlands have been described with copy-specific details in the STCV database. The intern will catalogue the remaining 125 in the MEI-database, and adapt (if necessary) records described in ISTC, under supervision of Zanna Van Loon, the curator of rare books and manuscripts. Requirements: Good knowledge of English; good knowledge of Latin; palaeographical skills; bibliographical training in rare books is preferred.

4.Provenance marks at Royal Irish Academy, Dublin – in person, 1 month (Sept-Dec. 2025) The project is to describe sample provenance marks in the collection of Charles Haliday (1789–1866), Royal Irish Academy Library, Dublin, for the Provenance Digital Archive (PDA) of CERL. Charles Haliday (1789-1866) was a Tipperary-born antiquary who spent much of his career as a merchant in Dublin. Haliday was an avid collector of books, pamphlets and manuscripts, particularly those of Irish interest. After his death on 14 Sept 1866 Haliday’s widow presented his collection to the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. It contains nearly 23,000 pamphlets bound in 2,209 octavo volumes which date from 1682 to 1859. The proposed internship will involve the identification and description of provenance marks (bookplates, stamps, annotations etc.) from a selection of items in the Haliday collection. This will be an in-person opportunity at one of Ireland’s finest research libraries. Supervisor: Barbara McCormack, Academy Librarian B.McCormack@ria.ie Requirements: Bibliographical training in rare books; fluency in written English.

5. Incunabula at Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust) – in person, 1 month The library at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, is often considered to the be jewel in the crown of the Trust’s libraries. That’s certainly true from a bibliographical point of view, being the Trust library with the richest collection of early printed books, including the largest collection of incunabula – 68 in total. We would very much welcome an intern who would be willing to begin the process of working with Blickling’s incunables, and the resident librarian, to help us better understand them and to get them represented properly on ISTC and MEI. To facilitate an internship there may be subsidised accommodation on the Blickling estate, which might be an incentive (and certainly a draw – the estate is stunningly beautiful!).

Requirements: Fluency in written English; preferred knowledge of Latin and of Latin and English palaeography; knowledge of incunabula/early printed books and bibliography.

6. Research for CERL Secretariat – remote CERL is seeking an able researcher who will explore the website of the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme to identify suitable funding calls to support the work of CERL and of its member libraries. Supervisor: C. Dondi.

Requirements: Fluency in written English; knowledge of the activities of CERL; interest and understanding of heritage book collections and research libraries.

FOR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA of MILAN Since 2019, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan funds a dedicated grant to allow a student from its institution who matches the indicated requirements to be selected for a CERL internship abroad, specifically to work on incunabula and MEI.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE Your application should include a CV (maximum two pages) and a covering letter. This should outline preference of destination/project and your suitability for the internship, your reasons for the application, and the name of one referee who can be contacted by CERL. If the applicant is employed by an institution, the consent of the institution should be included. Short-listed candidates will be interviewed remotely.

Deadline: 4 April 2025. Please email the application to c.dondi@cerl.org

RECIPIENTS OF 2024 GRANTS

The CERL Grant Committee is very pleased to announce the conferment of six CERL Grants:

1.To catalogue incunabula at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge to Seosamh Mac Cárthaigh, with a PhD in Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic and internships at the British Library and Dublin DIAS to Catalogue pre-1600 Irish manuscripts.

2. To catalogue incunabula at the Huntington Library, San Marino California to Jackson Hartigan, an MPhil student at Cambridge working on Lorenzo Pignoria’s De servis (1613) and student work experience at Williams College Chapin Library.

3. To work on map-inc (Mapping incunabula in Greek libraries) and CERL’s Provenance Digital Archive (PDA) at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Piraeus, Greece to Tom Mackinnon, Library assistant at the National Portrait Gallery of London.

4. To describe provenance marks of the Fagel Collection, Library of Trinity College Dublin, in the Provenance Digital Archive (PDA) of CERL to Costanza Ficorella, Assistant Archivist, Office of Public Works, National Monuments Services, Dublin, with an MA in Archivistics, Diplomatics and Palaeography from the University of Ferrara and a MSt in Jewish Studies from the Univ. of Oxford.

5. To catalogue incunabula at the University Library of Naples to Valeria Cesaraccio, a PhD student in Renaissance Studies at the University of Warwick, working on education in 16th-century Italy, with an BA from the Univ. of Sassari and a MA from the Univ. of Turin.

6. To match incunable holdings with ISTC numbers at Utrecht University to Martina Uvale, with a Master’s degree in Library and Archival Sciences from the Univ. of Bologna, a period at the Universitat de València working on Aragonese manuscripts, an Erasmus at the Univ. Complutense of Madrid.

We received 14 applications from Greece (5, one based in the NL); Ireland (1); Italy (5, two based in the UK, one based in Ireland); Spain (1); United Kingdom (1); United States (1, based in the UK). 7 early career scholars or librarianship students. 7 early career librarians or professionals. 10 female and 4 male applicants.

RECIPIENTS OF 2023 GRANTS

The CERL Grant Committee is very pleased to announce the conferment of seven CERL Grants:

To catalogue in MEI the incunabula of Groningen University Library to Agnė Zemkajutė, Book Museum exhibitions’ curator, and formerly curator of incunabula, at the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Vilnius.

To catalogue in MEI the incunabula of the Huntington Library of San Marino Cal., to Isabel Hernandez Gomez de Caso, curator of manuscripts and incunabula, National Library of Spain, Madrid.

To work with the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) and Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI), remotely, to Francesca Pontini, PhD student at Stirling University.

To work with the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) and Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI), remotely, to Sheza Moledina, formerly Enssib, Printing Museum, and Public Library, Lyon.

To catalogue rare French printed ephemera, 1660-85, at Marsh's Library, Dublin, to Claire Castex, librarian at the Musėe du Domain Dėpartemental de Sceaux, Montrouge.

To work with CERL’s Retrospective National Bibliographies Working Group to Chana Algarvio, assistant librarian and programme coordinator in Book History and Print at the Robertson Davies Library, Massey College, University of Toronto, Canada.

To describe provenance marks in the Provenance Digital Archive of CERL at the Ossolineum Library, Wrocław, Poland, to Laura Kreigere-Liepina, formerly chief bibliographer and researcher at the Rare Books and Manuscripts collection, National Library of Latvia, Riga.

We regret to say that the grant to work on the CERL website was withdrawn: following our recent migration of data platform, in April 2023, it became clear that the CERL website needs a much bigger overhaul than foreseen. The work described in the CERL grant will now take place at a later date, as part of that work on the website.

We received 37 applications from Argentina (1), Canada (2), Czech Republic (1), Germany (3), France (3), India (1), Ireland (4), Italy (5), Latvia (1), Lithuania (1), Mexico (1), The Netherlands (5), Norway (1), Spain (2), UK (4), US (2). 22 early career scholars or librarianship students. 15 early career librarians. 14 male and 23 female applicants.

RECIPIENTS OF 2022 GRANTS

The CERL Grant Committee is very pleased to announce the conferment of six CERL Grants:

To catalogue in MEI the incunabula of Marsh's Library, Dublin, to Sara D’Amico, a cataloguer at the Biblioteca dell’Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, with an Erasmus traineeship at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, and a MA in Library Science from “La Sapienza” University of Rome.

To catalogue in MEI incunabula from the collection of the Dukes of Arenberg, in Brussels, to Antonia Delle Fratte, an early career scholar with an internship at the Biblioteca Vallicelliana of Rome, and an MA in the History of Art (manuscript illumination and history of collections) from “La Sapienza” University of Rome.

To train in the use of MEI the incunabulists of the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid to Elena Fogolin, CERL grantee 2018/19 to the Huntington Library in San Marino and a PhD student at the universities of Udine/Mainz.

To catalogue in MEI incunabula from the database ‘Medieval Libraries of Great Britain’ (MLGB3) to Vanessa Rossi, librarian at the Bruno Kessler Foundation, Trento, working on a digitization project; with a diploma in Archivistica, Paleografia e Diplomatica from the State Archive of Bolzano; and an MA in Euro-American Literature from the University of Trento.

To work with CERL’s Retrospective National Bibliographies Working Group to Dr Olga Tkachuk, Special collections librarian in the Early Printed Books Department, the Ossoliński National Institute in Wrocław (Poland); former Head of the Manuscripts and Early Printed Books Department at the National Museum in Lviv (Ukraine); with a PhD in Philology.

To work with CERL’s Security Network to Jordyn Anable, a Masters student in the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté’s Rare Books and Digital Humanities programme.

We received 17 applications from Germany (1), Greece (1), France (1), India (1), Ireland (1), Italy (8), Poland (1), UK (2), US (1). 12 early career scholars or librarianship students. 5 early career librarians. 14 female and 3 male applicants.

CERL ALUMNI PRESENT THEIR RESEARCH

On 27 January 2021, a number of CERL Junior Fellows presented the research they did in the context of the CERL Grant Scheme and/or their current research. The programme, presentation slides and a link to the recording of the online session can be found here.

In 2020/21, we were not able to offer the grants.

RECIPIENTS OF 2019/20 GRANTS

Exceptionally, recipients of the 2019/20 grants were allowed to do their placement at a library in their own city or country. In on or two cases, when it was not possible to arrange even that, recipients of the grant planned to work from home on CERL databases: 1) Martyna Osuch (Special collections librarian in the Early Printed Books Department, University of Warsaw Library; PhD student, University of Warsaw (first year of Interdisciplinary Doctoral School). Cataloguing the incunabula of the Metropolitan Seminary Library in Warsaw into MEI. 2) Camilla Marangoni (Master’s degree in Archaeology and Art History, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan) transferring data from the Catalogue of the Laurenziana Library of Florence into MEI. 3) Anna de Bruyn (PhD student at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands) Cataloguing the incunabula of Groningen UL into MEI.

RECIPIENTS OF 2018/19 GRANTS

The CERL Grant Committee is very pleased to announce the conferment of five CERL Grants:

1) To catalogue the collection of incunabula at the University Library of Cambridge to Marianna Morreale, with a degree in Archival and Library Studies from the University of Rome, Italy, a Master in Museology and Cultural Heritage Management from the Catholic University of Milan, and internship experience (“Torno subito” from Regione Lazio) working on the digital provenance archive at the Marciana National Library, Venice.

2-3) To catalogue the collection of incunabula at the Huntington Library, San Marino to Martyna Grzesiak, a DPhil Student in Italian and Book History at the University of Oxford who is working on the distribution and use of the Bibles printed in Italian in the fifteenth century, and to Maria José Rucio Zamorano, Head of the Manuscripts and Incunabula Department of the National Library of Spain, Madrid, with expertise in Iberian incunabula. As Ms Rucio Zamorano was unable to go to the US, the grant was offered to Elena Fogolin, a graduate of the University of Udine with an Erasmus + at the Gutenberg Museum of Mainz.

4) To catalogue the collection of incunabula at the Beinecke Library, Yale, to Niamh Delaney, Assistant Librarian in the Special Collections Department of the University of Liverpool, with degrees from the University of Glasgow and St Andrews and a Master in Library and Information Studies from University College, London.

5) To work on CERL’s PDA in The Hague (Digital Humanities Grant) to Fabiano Cataldo de Azevedo, Professor of the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), where is part of the School of Librarianship and teaches History of the Book and Libraries. A member of IFLA's Rare Books and Special Collection Section, initially as a Corresponding Member (2014-2015) and later as a member of the Standing Committee (2015-2019). As Prof. Cataldo was unable to go to The Hague the grant was offered to Lucrezia Signorello, a graduate of Rome La Sapienza University with working experience at ICCU and other Rome libraries. In 2020 Lucrezia won a PhD position at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” to work on a project about the reconstruction of the library of the Augustinian convent of Santa Maria del Popolo (Rome) in the 16th century. Supervisor Valentina Sestini, co-supervisor Paolo Tinti.

The Huntington and Cambridge offered matching funds to secure longer internships.

The Beinecke offered a full grant and also invited last year’s grantees, Beatrice Alai and James Missons, to spend another period working with their incunabula collections.

We received 27 applications from Brazil (1), Hungary (2), Lithuania (2), Italy (15), Spain (2), UK (4), Poland (1). 4 Male and 23 female. 8 librarians or library trainees, 19 early career scholars or students.

RECIPIENTS OF 2017/18 GRANTS

25 February 2018: The CERL Grant Committee is very pleased to announce the conferment of four CERL Grants:

1) To catalogue the collection of incunabula at Cambridge University Library to Ester Peric, a Master student in Italian Philology and Book History from the University of Udine, Italy, with experience in archival documents and an Erasmus + in Manchester spent cataloguing incunabula at the John Rylands University Library. Peric gained a place in the four-year Doctorate programme 'Testi, Tradizioni e Culture del Libro. Studi italiani e romanzi' at the University of Naples (coord. Prof. Andrea Mazzucchi), starting Nov. 2019.

2) To catalogue the collection of incunabula at Edinburgh National Library to Krisztina Rábai, Assistant Professor in Medieval and Book History at the University of Szeged, Hungary, with experience in monastic library collections.

3) To catalogue the collection of incunabula at the Beinecke Library in Yale to Beatrice Alai, from Cesena, Italy, with degrees in History of Art and Palaeography from the University of Florence and Padua and currently on a postdoctoral fellowship in Berlin to work on the incunabula collection of the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin.

4) To James Misson, a DPhil student in English Literature from the University of Oxford, with experience in English Palaeography and in cataloguing in MEI incunabula from Oxford colleges.

The three hosting libraries offered matching funds to secure a longer internship. A report of their activities is available here.

25 applications were received from Australia (1), Austria (1), Canada (1), Hungary (1), Italy (12, 4 of which living abroad), Japan (1), Spain (1), Netherlands (3), New Zeland (1), UK (1), US (1), Poland (1).

8 Male and 17 female. 11 librarians or library trainees or students, 14 early career scholars.

RECIPIENTS OF 2016/17 GRANTS

1 May 2017, three Interns started work on enriching MEI entries for the incunables held at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, in The Hague:

• Ruben Celani (Italy)
• Judit Kolumban (Romania)
• Maria O'Shea (Ireland)

The KB was able to offer a Gerard van Thienen Grant to Lauren Leenders (the Netherlands), to strengthen the team. The team was supervised by Dr Marieke van Delft, Curator Early Printed Collections, KB The Hague.

A report of their activities is available here.

RECIPIENTS OF 2015 GRANTS

CERL received 21 applications.

A grant was awarded to Francesca Rocchi, a graduate in Latin Palaeography of La Sapienza University, Rome, with previous internship experience at the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome, to work within the Special Collections Department of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. A report of her activities is available here.

A grant was awarded to Thomas Theyssens, a graduate in Early Modern History from the University of Louvain, with a Master in Heritage Management in Libraries from the University of Antwerp, to work within the Printed Heritage Collections Department of the British Library, London. A report of his activities is available here.

More information about the 2015 awards is available here.

RECIPIENT OF 2014 GRANT

2014 - Angéline Rais - Cataloguing the incunabula collection of Lambeth Palace Library, London in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database.
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