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. Internships are generally advertised in January and should normally take place within the period June-December.

CERL’s Grants Sub-Committee 2025- (Cristina Dondi, Anders Toftgaard, Maria Berggren)

CERL’s Grants Sub-Committee 2014-2024 (Cristina Dondi, Adrian Edwards, Anders Toftgaard)

CERL 2026 INTERNSHIP and PLACEMENT GRANTS Deadline: 10 April 2026

CERL would like to offer six 2026 Internship and Placement Grants, to the value of 1,000 Euros each (unless otherwise stated), 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 2026.

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: a canvass of the collection by Scott Husby 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 $4,000 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 Beinecke Library, Yale University – in person, 1 month Yale University Library holds approximately 3,800 incunable editions in approximately 4,000 copies across its special collections. Yale's collecting of early printing started sometime in the mid-nineteenth century, growing in parallel with the growth of the American rare book market through the end of that century, and reaching a fever pitch in the aftermath of World War II. Important acquisitions included the Melk copy of the Gutenberg Bible and featured an emphasis on collecting rare and unusual presses, as well as documenting the spread of printing in the early period. The holdings are strong in Greek and Latin classics, Italian humanist literature, historical texts, biblical literature and exegesis, and Hebrew printing. More recent areas of concentration are secular vernacular texts, illustrated books, and works by fifteenth-century authors. Copies in early bindings, notably a large group in German monastic bindings, or with evidence of early readership or provenance are prominent in the collection and in current collecting. Italian, German, and French imprints constitute the largest portion of the collection, but English and Spanish presses are well represented, with additional English material held by the Yale Center for British Art and additional Hebrew incunabula at the Medical Historical Library.

In coordination with Beinecke staff, the MEI fellows will identify a corpus of incunabula in Yale's collections aligning with their expertise, research their provenance, and create new provenance narratives in MEI, with supporting images added to the Provenance Digital Archive. Provenance will also be tracked and communicated to Technical Services for ingest into Yale’s library catalog. Beinecke Library will welcome up to two fellows for one month each, preferably concurrently. Fellows on campus during the fall semester will be encouraged to participate in the activities of their academic fields. Beinecke will provide a stipend of $4,000 (in addition to the CERL stipend of €1,000), with the grant-holder bearing the travel cost from the funding. Non-US nationals will have to apply for a visa, for which the library will provide assistance.

Requirements: palaeographical skills; knowledge of rare books, preferably incunabula and analytical bibliography; knowledge of Latin and English, and at least one European language as relevant to the proposed research.

3. Incunabula at the Beinecke Library, Yale University – in person, 1 month As above Beinecke Library will welcome up to two fellows for one month each, preferably concurrently. Fellows on campus during the fall semester will be encouraged to participate in the activities of their academic fields. Beinecke will provide a stipend of $4,000 (in addition to the CERL stipend of €1,000), with the grant-holder bearing the travel cost from the funding. Non-US nationals will have to apply for a visa, for which the library will provide assistance.

4. Incunabula at Pembroke College, University of Oxford – in person, 1 month Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, founded in 1624. We have a collection of over 100 incunabula across our special collections, some of which are unique items in the UK. The majority of these are philosophical, particularly focussed on the works of Aristotle and his commentators. Additionally, many of our books have manuscript additions, pastedowns and unusual or original bindings. The internship will involve checking the handlist, confirming our entries in the ISTC, and creating MEI records for them. Pembroke’s collection is largely uncatalogued at present, and a vital part of the internship is confirming that our records are accurate, as well as helping us to build a picture of the more general character of the collection. The internship is for one month, in person in Oxford. Free lunch will be provided, along with a small subsidy to cover expenses such as breakfast and bus fares on working days. Visits to other college libraries and the Bodleian special collections can also be arranged if desired. The intern will be supervised by Laura Cracknell. Requirements: Good written and spoken English; knowledge of Latin and ideally Greek; palaeographical and bibliographical skills preferred.

5.Montefiascone (Viterbo, Italy), Biblioteca Seminario minore vescovile Barbarigo – 2 weeks in person / 2 weeks remote Early printed books in MEI and HPB-Provenance The Montefiascone cataloguing project has been ongoing for the last twenty years. The project consists of cataloguing a seminary library that was founded in approximately 1690 (https://www.monteproject.com/the-library/). The project runs alongside a four-week summer school that was inaugurated in 1992 (https://www.monteproject.com/home/). The classes provide a unique opportunity for students (librarians, conservators, historians) to learn more about the history of the book, by making a book as it would originally have been made, and based on an existing model (https://www.monteproject.com/study-programme/). The project will host at Montefiascone the CERL intern for two weeks, 20-31 July 2026, will pick up the intern at Viterbo train station, and receive three evening meals per week. The grant will cover travel costs to and from Viterbo, accommodation (c. £70 per night) and other meals. The internship would focus on the following: 1- Inventory the incunabula to determine if the ISTC records are accurate and update accordingly; 2- Add provenance data to MEI for the remaining incunabula; 3- Add ISTC references to our in-house catalogue; 4- Upload entire in-house catalogue to Heritage of the Printed Book database, ensuring no overlap with existing records (holdings: Biblioteca Seminario minore vescovile Barbarigo) 5- If time allows, contribute to the cataloguing project by cataloguing sixteenth to nineteenth century books The intern will be supervised by Renae Satterley (London, Middle Temple Library) and Niamh Delaney (University of Liverpool). Requirements: English speaking and some bibliographic/cataloguing experience are mandatory; Italian is not mandatory, but basic Italian is helpful, as is basic Latin.

6.Rome, Venerable English College – in person, 1 month Copy-specific cataloguing of Early Printed Books The proposed internship is centred on research-driven descriptive cataloguing of books printed before 1800, with particular attention to copy-specific features and to the systematic identification and description of provenance evidence: ownership inscriptions, bookplates, bindings, annotations, shelfmarks, and other material traces that document the historical circulation and use of books. The internship will enrich existing catalogue records and create new scholarly-level descriptions into a defined format in Koha. Particular care will be given to ensuring the resulting data can be effectively integrated within the wider CERL framework. Close study of the provenance of the rare books collection has highlighted the importance of Italian contributions to the library by its early donors, such as Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–58) and the scholar Alan Cope (d. 1578). Early acquisitions included many works in non-Latin scripts, particularly from the Tipografia Medicea. This press, established by Ferdinand I de’ Medici (1549–1609), provided the College with books in Arabic and Syriac, including an Arabic grammar (1592), a Syriac grammar (1596), an illustrated Arabic edition of the Gospels (1590) and the Missale Chaldaicum (1594). These works demonstrate the long history of exchanges between East and West that are visible across the collections. Part of this material derives from the original core collection of the College library, which was subsequently enriched in the nineteenth century through the donation of two important private libraries belonging to learned collectors of works in non-Latin scripts: Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman (1802–1865) and Edward Henry Howard (1829-1892). Their contributions significantly strengthened the College’s holdings in oriental languages and further expanded the range of texts illustrating the circulation of scholarship between Europe and the Eastern Christian and Islamic worlds. The project will also provide the intern with advanced training in specialist cataloguing methodologies and in the analytical skills required for provenance-focused research on early printed books. The intern will be supervised by Renaud Milazzo. Requirements: Good knowledge of Latin, palaeographical skills, and bibliographical training in rare books; fluency in English.

RECIPIENTS OF 2025 GRANTS

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

1. To catalogue incunabula at the Huntington Library, San Marino California to Iván Pérez Marinas (Spain), a curator in the Department of Manuscripts, incunabula, and Rare Books of the National Library of Spain, Madrid.

2. To catalogue incunabula at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Piraeus, Greece to Jemima Bennett (UK), a PhD student in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent and Bodleian Libraries Oxford (collaborative doctoral partnership).

3. To catalogue incunabula at the Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp to Letizia Guzzetti (Italy), a student at the Vatican School of Library science.

4. To describe provenance marks at Royal Irish Academy, Dublin to Madeline Birnbaum (United States), Assistant Archivist at Boston University School of Theology Library.

5. To catalogue incunabula at Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust) to Carmen Oanea (Romania), a PhD student at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania exploring the reading practices and habits of early modern readers based on data obtained from former Jesuit libraries across Europe; and with experience in cataloguing Cluj incunabula in MEI.

6. To do research for CERL’s Secretariat (specifically, to 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) to Felix Vanden Borre (Belgium), an MPhil student in Digital Humanities at Trinity College Dublin.

We received 20 applications from Belgium (2); Brazil (2); France (1); Greece (1); Ireland (1); Italy (4); Romania (1); Slovenia (1, based in NL); Spain (2); Sweden (1); United Kingdom (3); United States (1). 11 early career scholars or librarianship students. 9 early career librarians/archivists or professionals. 15 female and 5 male applicants.

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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collaboration/internship.txt · Last modified: 2026/03/29 17:14 by dondi