News 2010

Augsburg's State and City Library under threat
The city government of Augsburg has communicated plans to close the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg. The plans are motivated by the town's critical financial situation. The library, founded 1537, contains more than 530,000 printed documents and more than 3,600 hand-written documents. With a total of 100,000 documents dated before 1800, and 60,000 documents related to the 16th and 17th centuries it is a unique scientific library. For further information on how to support the endeavour to rescue the Staat- und Stadtsbibliothek Augsburg, please consult http://www.rettet-die-stabi.de/pageID_10406361.html.

Vladimir Zaitsev
It was with great regret that we learnt of the death (on 26/27 October 2010) of Dr Vladimir Zaitsev, who had been a CERL Director since 1996. CERL owes him a great debt of gratitude for all his efforts in furthering the cause of the Consortium and his unfailing commitment to collaboration in Europe. CERL wished his family, as well as his staff at the National Library in St Petersburg, much strength in their time of mourning.

LIBER Steering Committee for Heritage Collections and Preservation

The Steering Committee will organise a session ‘Building a community in European libraries for heritage collections and preservation’ on Tuesday morning 29 June, from 9.30-12.30 at the LIBER Annual General Assembly in Ǻrhus, Denmark.

The session will aim to bring together members of SC working groups and other stakeholders in the topics attending the LIBER conference to set out the priorities and plans of the SC and its groups for 2010, to get feedback on plans for 2011-2012, and to involve LIBER members actively in shaping discussion and debate.

The SC hopes for your active participation in discussing the following questions:

• What are the “hot topics” in the field today?
• What will it look like in 5-10 years time?
• Which areas should LIBER, the SC and the working group see as priorities for European cooperation and joint action?

Programme:

1. Priorities and plans of the SC/groups for 2010
2. Purpose of the morning and method
3. Breakouts groups (to discuss the questions outline above), one each for Heritage Collections and Preservation and Digital Curation
4. Break - Each breakout produces a “mind map” of topics discussed during the break
5. Presentation of topics
6. Communication – how we’re going to keep in touch physically and virtually
7. Summary

The SC looks forward to seeing you at Århus!

Festive presenation of the Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheek

11 June 2010 saw the well-attended launch of the Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheek, which is a network organisation established by six heritage libraries in Flanders (Belgium) at the end of 2008:

• Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience in Antwerp
• University Library Antwerp
• Public Library Bruges
• University Libray Ghent
• Provincial Library Limburg in Hasselt
• University Library Louvain

Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheek (Flemish Heritage Library) is geared toward anyone with an interest in written, printed and digital hertiage collections in libraries. Through projects and research, we aim to develop competence and spread knowlegde about preserving heritage library collections and making them accessible. Additionally, it wishes to raise public awareness about the riches of heritage library collections in Flanders and Brussels.

Read more...

CERL's December Newsletter is now available for downloading from http://www.cerl.org/web/en/publications/newsletter.

4th Conference of LIBER Manuscript Librarians Group
The 4th Conference of LIBER Manuscript Librarians Group, “Meeting with manuscripts, today and tomorrow”, will take place on 26-28 May 2010 at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Roma (Italy).

Colleagues from all over Europe will present and discuss experiences and projects of common interest, while outlining future perspectives. The dissemination of digital technologies is strongly affecting manuscript culture, as well as any other field of information and knowledge. The Conference will include sessions on born-digital materials, networks of digitized manuscripts, old and new readers and users, and training of curators, trying to highlight the best ways to manage and preserve for future generations born-digital literary and historical documents and to profit from the technological sceneries to enhance and expand access to and knowledge of the manuscript sources.

You can find the detailed programme and the registration form on the website of the Biblioteca Nazionale. The deadline for registration has been extended until 20 April 2010.