CERL would like to offer five 2019/2020 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 digital resources, generally for a period of one month. If matched funding is provided by the hosting institution, the period can be extended. One of the five grants is offered by Università Cattolica of Milan, and is specifically dedicated to one of their students. The internship should take place within the period January-September 2020.

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

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 (forthcoming), and/or a presentation in person will be expected at the end of the internship/placement.

Your application should include a CV (maximum two pages) and a covering letter. This should outline preference of destination 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.
Deadline: 21 January 2020.
Please email the application to secretariat@cerl.org.

Cambridge University Library’s collection of around 4,600 incunabula were catalogued online between 2009 and 2014 as part of a Mellon-funded project, with full provenance and copy specific information included. 3989 records were uploaded onto MEI in October 2017 and now need to be brought in line with MEI by the creation of multiple provenance blocks, geographical and chronological marking. Additional records are also created where necessary for bound-with items. The grant-holder would work under the supervision and with the support of Emily Dourish, Deputy Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts.

The successful applicant will be awarded €1000 from CERL, for one internship of the duration of one month, with the grant-holder bearing the travel cost from the funding. The Library will provide matching funds to assist with covering the cost of travel and living expenses.

Requirements for the grant-holder: - palaeographical skills - knowledge of rare books, preferably incunabula and analytical bibliography - knowledge of Latin and English

German-born bibliophile Hiero von Holtorp spent over fifty years assembling and arranging specimens of early printing. His collection was auctioned at Sotheby’s on 29 March 1906, and all twenty lots were purchased by Enriqueta Rylands for presentation to The John Rylands Library. It is now housed in ten large boxes. It consists of specimen leaves from virtually all 15th- and 16th-century printers in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands and England. The internship project will be to create a handlist for the German fragments based on notes by the collector and an early Rylands librarian (possibly Henry Guppy). The information can then be added to ISTC and to MEI. The grant-holder will work under the supervision of Julianne Simpson, Research Engagement Manager in Special Collections.

The successful applicant will be awarded €1000 from CERL, for one internship of the duration of one month, with the grant-holder bearing the travel cost from the funding.

Requirements for the grant-holder: - knowledge of rare books, preferably incunabula and analytical bibliography - knowledge of Latin and English, and preferably German.

Located in the center of New York City, the Morgan Library & Museum is one of North America’s preeminent rare book libraries. Built in 1906 as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), the library building is an architectural gem of America’s Age of Elegance. In 1924 J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867–1943) made one of the most momentous cultural gifts in U.S. history by transforming the private library into a public institution, making the building and its treasures available to scholars and the public alike.

The Morgan’s incunabula collection totals approximately 2758 copies of 2588 editions, including 4 examples of the Gutenberg Bible (3 bound copies plus a Noble Fragment) and the largest collection of Caxtons outside of England. The CERL internship would convert the Morgan’s updated OPAC records into the MEI data profile, focusing on copies least likely to be described elsewhere. The Morgan holds the only known copy of 98 incunabula and one of two known copies of 76. The project is intended for those interested in developing MEI cataloguing skills but perhaps without the deep palaeographic or bibliographic knowledge necessary for original cataloguing. By focusing on this collection of unica, the intern would gain broad familiarity with incunabula from Germany, Italy, France, England, and Spain.

The Morgan Library is offering a stipend of $3000 (inclusive of €1000 from CERL), for one internship of the duration of one month, with the grant-holder bearing the travel cost from the funding. Non-U.S. nationals will have to apply for a visa, for which the Library will provide assistance. Preference will be shown to those applicants who can begin their internship by 31 March 2020.

Requirements for the grant-holder: - knowledge of rare books, preferably incunabula and analytical bibliography - knowledge of English

The Huntington 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 activity. 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 Scott Husby’s Bookbindings on Incunables database which revealed that nearly a quarter of the books have contemporary bindings.

The Huntington is offering two internships, each one month long—preferably to run concurrently—to create records of its incunabula in MEI. Internships will be supervised by Stephen Tabor, Curator of Rare Books at The Huntington, and must begin no earlier than June 10, 2020.

The Huntington is offering a stipend of $3500 (inclusive of €1000 from CERL) for each one-month internship, with grant-holders bearing the travel cost from the funding. Non-U.S. nationals will have to apply for a J-1 visa. The Huntington maintains an exchange visitor program through the United States Department of State and will assist interns with providing the appropriate paperwork.

Requirements for the grant-holders: - palaeographical skills (that can be specialized in a particular region and may affect the parts of the collection to be assigned) - knowledge of rare books, preferably incunabula and analytical bibliography - knowledge of Latin and English

From 2019, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan will fund 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.