Conferences, Seminars & Workshops

Annual Seminars
Other Seminars
Workshops
Past Seminars/Workshops

CERL annually organises a seminar addressing subjects relating to the Consortium’s objectives, preceding the Annual General Meeting.

• 16-17 March 2023 - with IFLA RBMS: Libraries at the Time of War (UB Uppsala, Sweden)

• 29-30 June 2023 - RB conference: Retrospective Bibliographies and European Print Cultures to 1830 - Challenges and perspectives in the digital age (Ossolineum Library, in Wrocław)

• 6-8 September - Collection Security Summer School (BNE, Madrid)

• 15 September 2023 - Cultural Property Workshop around due diligence and rigorous provence research in the context of acquisitions (BL, London)

• 2 March 2021 - MEI Seminar.
  The programme, slides and recordings are available here. The full recording of the session is available on CERL's Tube Channel.

• 27 January 2021 - CERL Alumni present their research (online).
  The programme, slides and recordings are available here. The full recording of the session is available on CERL's Tube Channel.

• 8 December 2020 - Collection Security Summer School light
  • Various members of the CERL Security Network have made a recording of a presentation they gave at one of the CERL Collections Security Summer Schools that took place in previous years. The play list for these recordings is available here, and features
    
    • Nina Korbu, National Library of Norway - In-house Collection Security
    • Jarle Rui Aadna, Royal Library in Copenhagen - Two independent cultural institutions in one reading room
    • Adrian Edwards, British Library - Missing item processes at the British Library
    • Per Cullhed, Uppsala University Library - Security in the stacks - monitoring and risk assessment
    • Jacqueline Lambert, Royal Library in Brussels - Working with the Quick Audit Tool.

• 1 December 2020 - Security Network Panel on the impact of COVID-19 on libraries/special collections
  • On the panel were Jacqueline Lambert (Royal Library, Brussels and Chairman of the CERL Security Network), Foekje Boersma (Royal Library, The Hague), Angela Dellebeke (National Archives, The Hague), Frédéric Lemmers (Royal Library, Brussels) and Andrea Cappa (Biblioteca Nacionale Centrale, Rome), who talked about amending workflows; communication; security and safety issues; and opportunities and positive outcomes. The recording is available here.

• Online presentation about the REALM project: Supporting the reopening of libraries, archives, and museums (24 November 2020, 17u CET)
  • Organised with OCLC Research Library Partnership
  • The recording (24 November 2020), slides, and links are posted on the OCLC event page
• CERL information session: CERL member libraries' experience on digital projects supported by the Polonsky Foundation (held on 27 October 2020)
  • Programme
  • Play list
• CERL information session: Re-using CERL data by Andreas Walker
  • video recorded on 6 October 2020
  • slides with clickable links

• The Hague, 18-19 November 2019 Seminar on preparing for and using a remote storage facility Programme
• Tartu, 4-6 September 2019 Collection Security Summer School further information
• Antwerp, 2-4 September 2019 Summerschool: Reconstructing Book Ownership: Sources, Methods, and Perspectives, Programme
• Budapest, National Széchényi Library of Hungary, 31 May 2019 Digital Technologies in the Investigation of Printed Heritage. Programme, Presentations and Pictures.
• National Library of Norway, Oslo, 22-23 May 2019 conference and workshop to celebrate the 500 year anniversary of the first printed Norwegian book, National Library of Oslo, Norway.
• Uppsala University Library, 27-28 May 2019 Uncovering the covers. Workshop on bookindings, provenance and and watermarks on the Internet. Programme and Registration.
• Bibliothèque municipale, Lyon, 3 April 2019. Séminaire sur l'étude des provenances des fonds patrimoniaux des bibliothèques territoriales françaises. Programme
  A video record of the seminar is available here.
• Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, 27 March 2019. Workshop: Computer Vision in Book History. Programme
  
• Renaissance Society of America, Toronto, 17-19 March 2019, CERL participated in the RSA 2019 Toronto Annual Meeting

Most of the Annual Seminars (see Previous CERL Annual Seminars) have been published in the series of CERL Papers.

In addition to conferences and seminars the Consortium offers training workshops, aiming to introduce colleagues to the Consortium’s work, to have practical training sessions, and to invite colleague to indicate their requirements in the context of their institutions.

• CERL Seminar at the ETH-Bibliothek, Zürich, Wednesday 14 March 2018.
  A one-day seminar on 'Visual approaches to cultural heritage' was held at the ETH-Bibliothek. The ‘icon turn’ has re-focused the attention of scholars from texts to visual material and its interpretation. Image-based search tools to sources and the visual presentation of research results have, however, not emerged equally fast. The programme and presentations are available here.
  

• International Conference at the British Library, London, Tuesday 28 November 2017
  A one-day conference on “New Sources for Book History: Combined Methodological Approaches for Manuscripts and Printed Books”(text and images; material evidence; historical bibliographical and documentary sources; sale and auction catalogues; etc.) held at the British Library. The programme can be found here.
  

• Patras, LIBER Annual General Meeting, Wednesday 4 July 2017 (am only) Managing bequests and digital estates: new challenges for libraries. Programme.

• CERL Seminar at the Beinecke Library, Yale, Friday 21 April 2017
  On the occasion of the meeting of CERL Directors in the US a one-day Seminar was held the following day on “Retracing the Steps from the Old to the New World”, where members of the new Group of American Libraries in CERL presented and discussed their European Special Collections holdings, expectations from the new collaboration and common objectives. The PowerPoint presentations are available here.
  

• The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation (IAL) and the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Monday-Tuesday 20-21 March 2017
  A two-day event on “The opening up of private and religious libraries to scholarship” focused on the subject of Greek libraries, their management, the promotion of their collaboration, and the integration of their resources. On 20 March there was a conference titled “Greek research and historical libraries: opportunities for connection and collaboration” and on 21 March a workshop titled “Library management workshop: security, conservation, cataloguing, digitisation and funding”. The programme is available here: English and Greek.
  

• The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Tuesday 21 March 2017
  A lecture by Dr Cristina Dondi on “Visualising 500 years of circulation of Greek incunabula in European and American Collections”.

• Ossoliński National Institute-CERL, Wrocław, Thursday-Saturday 29 September-1 October 2016
  A conference of the Group of Polish Research Libraries Collecting Early Imprints under the title “Old books and their owners – the current state of research, catalogues, perspectives”. The subjects were provenance research of early imprints and cataloguing incunabula. Programme.
  

• EDPOP Workshop, Lincoln College, Oxford, Friday 25 November 2016
  This by-invitation-only workshop is organised by CERL for the EDPOP project. The final programme is available here.
  

• Helsinki, LIBER Annual General Meeting, Wednesday 29 June 2016 (am only) The Wood for the Trees - a workshop on Discoverability of Digital Collections. Programme.
  

• REBIUN-CERL, Universidad de Salamanca, Salón de actos de la Facultad de Traducción y Documentación, Tuesday 15 March 2016
  'A coordinated approach to recording and searching provenance records and images: moving forward. Part 2. / Investigación coordinada sobre Procedencias. Hacia el futuro. Parte 2.' The programme and PowerPoint presentations are available here.
  

• New York, Columbia University, Butler Library 523, Thursday 28 January 2016, 13:00-15:00
  A presentation by CERL of its latest research activities and future plans by the CERL Secretary and CERL Directors to American libraries. Programme.

• Rome, National Central Library, Wednesday, November 18, 2015, 9:30-13:00
  A presentation of the latest research activities and future plans of the Consortium of European Research Libraries. The main focus of the 260 libraries found in CERL is the integration of their collections of books, manuscripts and printed materials. Programme.

• Univerity of Antwerp
  On 28 October 2015, after the CERL Annual General Meeting three 20-minute presentations were given by
  Kathleen Walker-Meikle (CERL) on the CENDARI project Presentation
  Evelien De Wilde (City Museums Bruges (Prentenkabinet)) and Ludo Vandamme (Bruges Public Library) on the Colard Mansion exhibition project Presentation
  Eva Wuyts (VEB) on the Flemish Heritage Library - Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheek (VEB) Presentation
  

• The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
  CENDARI Expert Seminar, 'Large-scale digital infrastructures and their users', 6 October 2015
  Programme and Dunning Presentation
• London, Senate House, LIBER 2015
  LIBER Forum for Digital Cultural Heritage workshop: 'The state of the art of image recognition', 24 June
  Programme and presentations
  
• London, Chelsea College of Arts
  Ligatus/CERL Bookbinding Expert Seminars & Reception. Three Expert Seminars on the use of the Ligatus Language of Bindings followed by a plenary session on the guidelines for bookbinding. CERL also gave talks on the CERL Bookbinding Working Group, its European collaborations and CENDARI’s activities. 23 June 2015.
  Programme and presentations
  See the video recording and/or read a report in News in Conservation, August 2015.
• Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
  The first conference of the CERL Security Network Library Security: Practices and Strategies. There were four sessions covering 1. Accountability and Governance, 2. Staff interaction with collections, 3. Digital tools for prevention and detection, and 4. The process of recovery: how do we interact with the investigating and legal authority? 8 May 2015.
  The programme and PowerPoint presentations are available here.
  
• Vienna, Austrian National Library
  A conference on Signa vides - Researching and recording printers’ devices: current activities and new perspectives organised under the auspices of CERL by Prof. Dr. Anja Wolkenhauer (University of Tübingen), Michaela Scheibe (Berlin State Library) and Dr. Andreas Fingernagel (Austrian National Library). 17-18 March 2015.
  The programme and PowerPoint presentations are available here. Published in 2016 as CERL Papers XIII.
  
• London, Warburg Institute
  A conference on A coordinated approach to recording and searching provenance records and images: moving forward organised by Raphaële Mouren (Warburg Institute) and Cristina Dondi (CERL Secretary and Lincoln College, Oxford). Sponsored by IFLA RBSC, The Warburg Institute, CERL, 15cBOOKTRADE, CILIP RBSCG. 11 March 2015.
  PowerPoint presentations are available here.
  
• Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
  A workshop on Scientific Questions about Provenance and Their Requirements for Future Web and Database as part of the research project Development of interoperable metadata standards for the contextualization of heterogeneous collection objects, using the 18th century scholarly collection compiled by Georg Thomas von Asch as an example. Funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). 24-25 February.
  Programme and presentations.
  
• New York, MEI Training Day
  Columbia University, Butler Library. A training day run by Cristina Dondi, CERL’s Secretary, and John Lancaster, MEI Editor. 21 January 2015.
• New York, CERL Presentation
  Columbia University, Butler Library. Our latest research activities and future plans presented by CERL’s Secretary, Cristina Dondi, CERL Directors Richard Ovenden (Oxford) and Edwin C. Schroeder (Yale), and MEI Editor John Lancaster (for Smith College and Harvard collections). 22 January 2015.
  

• Rome, Conferenza episcopale italiana, Segnalare le provenienze degli incunaboli attraverso MEI – Material Evidence in Incunabula. A training course for librarians of Italian Ecclesiastical libraries, part of the network Polo Biblioteche Ecclesiatiche (Mons. Stefano Russo, Francesca D’Agnelli, Paul Gabriele Weston, Paola Sverzellati, Martina Pezzoni, C. Dondi, Alessandra Panzanelli, Sabrina Minuzzi, Adalbert Roth and BAVIC Team), 24-27 Nov. 2014. http://www.polopbe.it/pls/cci_new_v3/V3_S2EW_CONSULTAZIONE.mostra_pagina?id_pagina=60260&rifi=guest&rifp=guest
• The London Booktrade conference
  Workshop on bookshops, 16-17 November 2014.
• Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel Working Group for Library, Book and Media History
  CERL’s Secretary, Cristina Dondi, delivered the papers “Database-supported bibliographies, book catalogues and source materials” and “Booksellers’ archival sources for an insight on contemporary sales, prices, and use: the Zornale of Francesco de Madis, Venice 1484-88”, 29 September – 1 October 2014.
• Antwerp, SHARP Conference
  CERL Workshop on Historical Provenance Research: Material Evidence, Documentary Evidence, and Digital Humanities, 17-18 September 2014.
• Venice, Marciana National Library
  Cristina Dondi delivered a paper on the unique ledger of the Venetian bookseller Francesco de Madiis, held in that library, 26 May 2014.
• Oxford Bibliographical Society
  Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “Thinking Again about the First Printing Revolution with Both Eyes on the Books: Venetian Evidence for Prices, Trade, and Use”, 12 May 2014.
• Oxford, All Souls conference in honour of Ian Maclean
  Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “Transforming the Early Modern Republic of Letters: Literatures, Learning, Logic, Books”, 31 March - 2 April 2014.
• Paris, Sorbonne, Séminaire de codicologie du Lamop,
  A seminar on The 15th-century Book Trade: An Evidence-based Assessment and Visualization of the Distribution, Sale, and Reception of Books in the Renaissance, 27 March 2014.
• Edinburgh, National Library
  Workshop for CERL members, 18 March 2014.
• London, Victoria and Albert Museum
  Workshop on the Introduction of Printing in Europe, for the Master Course in History of Design, Royal College of Art and V&A, Part of the Option: Renaissance and Early Modern – Technological Cultures, 26 February 2014.

• London, CERL Office
  MEI Training Day for librarians from the Guildhall Library, London, and the Marsh's Library, Dublin, 26 November 2013.
• University of Oxford
  Cristina Dondi and Daniela Mairhofer delivered the paper “Palaeography, Textual Criticism, and History of the Early Printed Book” at the Methods of Scholarship lectures for post-graduate students, Michaelmas Term 2013.
• London, Bibliographical Society
  Cristina Dondi and Neil Harris delivered the paper “Francesco de Madiis, bookseller in Venice, 1484-88”, 19 November 2013.
• London, The Warburg Institute
  CERL’s Secretary, Cristina Dondi, delivered the papers “Techniques of scholarship: Incunabula” for the Masters in Cultural and Intellectual History 1300-1650 and on “Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture”, 12 November 2013.
• Harvard University, Houghton Library
  A Masterclass by Cristina Dondi on The Price and Trade of Fifteenth-Century Printed Books , MEI, and other CERL databases for research, 3 October 2013.
• Harvard University, Houghton Library\\, Cristina Dondi Delivered the paper “Thinking Again about the First Printing Revolution with Both Eyes on the Books: Venetian Evidence for Prices, Trade, and Use”, 30 September 2013.
• Milan, Università Cattolica
  A Round Table was organised by CERL and CRELEB to discuss databases for the study of incunabula, strategy with relation to incunable databases and projects: goals, plans, integrations, next steps, synergies, sharing of tasks, etc. to make sure that the people involved achieve and support the best possible way to produce research using incunabula, 13 September 2013.
• Milan, Università Cattolica and Università Statale
  An Incunabula conference. Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “Exporting books from Milan to Venice in the 15th century: evidence from the Zornale of Francesco de Madiis”, 10-12 September 2013.
• Modena
  A talk to the Soroptimists of Modena on the Italian book heritage and CERL by Cristina Dondi, 17 April 2013.
• The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
  Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “Image-matching software to support the investigation of the circulation of illustration by re-using and copying” at Illustrating the Early Printed Book, a conference on the occasion of the publication of Ina Kok, Woodcuts in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries, 12 April 2013.
• Milan, Palazzo delle Stelline
  A seminar on Oltre il muro…Promuovere e sostenere strategie di collaborazione e di partnership per la salvaguardia, la conservazione e la difesa del patrimonio culturale di archivi, biblioteche e musei, co-organised by Regione Lombardia-IFLA-AIB, within the annual Conference of the Italian Libraries organised by Biblioteche Oggi. Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “Le banche dati del Consortium of European Research Libraries: cooperazione internazionale per superare la dispersione del patrimonio librario europeo e produrre ricerca”, 14 March 2013.
• Oxford, Friends of the Bodleian Lecture
  Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “Historical Collections from European Religious Houses now in the Bodleian Library: Evidence from the Library’s Catalogue of Incunabula”, 5 March 2013.

• University of Oxford
  Cristina Dondi delivered lectures for post-graduate students on “Methods of Scholarship: Palaeography, Textual Criticism, and History of the Early Printed Book”, December 2012.
• Milan, Università Cattolica
  A workshop on MEI 2.0 Gli incunaboli delle Biblioteche Lombarde e il progetto Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI): Bilanci e prospettive, 14 December 2012.
• London, the Warburg Institute
  Workshop on “Techniques of scholarship” for the Master Course in Cultural and Intellectual History 1300-1650, 13 and 20 November 2012.
• London, The British Library
  CERL-BL-CILIP RBSC Group Seminar, Accessing heritage research collections through digitization: models and use, 30 October 2012. PowerPoints of the presentations are available on the CERL website here.
• Florence, Biblioteca Provinciale dei Frati Minori di Firenze
  Workshop on Strumenti per la ricerca dei dati di provenienza nelle banche dati del CERL, 19 October 2012.
  
• Florence, Biblioteca Provinciale dei Frati Minori di Firenze
  CERL Workshop on Tools for Provenance Research, 19 October 2012.
• London, British Library
  Italian Academies International Conference, 17-18 September 2012.
• Oxford University\\. A conference on Speaking truth to power: Making Special Collections Work in Times of Recession organised by the CILIP Rare Books & Special Collections Group, 12-14 September 2012.
• Tartu, University Library
  The LIBER Annual General Conference, 25-28 June 2012.
• Vienna, National Library of Austria
  CERL Workshop Tools for Provenance and Bibliographical Research for Austrian libraries, June 2012.
• Cambridge, University Library
  A Masterclass on priced incunabula by Cristina Dondi, “How much did it cost? Incunabula and their price”, 1 May 2012.
• Oxford, St Anne’s College
  A conference on How the Secularization of Religious Houses Transformed the Libraries of Europe, 16th–19th Centuries, 22-24 March 2012.
• Paris, l'Université Paul Monet (Sceaux),
  A conference organised by the École nationale supérieure des sciences de l’information et des bibliothèques, Villeurbanne (ENSSIB) and the Centre de conservation du Livre, Arles, on Circulation licite et illicite des collections des bibliothèques - aspects historiques et juridiques. Cristina Dondi delivered the paper “La circulation des livres en Europe à l’époque moderne: exemples à partir de la collection d’incunables de la Bodleian Library”, 12 January 2012.

• London, British Library, Rare Books Forum
  Workshop on Tools for Provenance and Bibliographical Research, 1 December 2011.
  
• University Library, Glasgow
  Workshop on Tools for Provenance and Bibliographical Research, Thursday 24 November 2011.
  Further details.
  View the PowerPoint presentations on the Heritage of the Printed Book Database, the CERL Thesaurus and the CERL Portal.
• National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
  Workshop for Russian Librarians, 14-15 September 2011
  At the annual seminar Cristina Dondi, CERL's Secretary, delivered the paper “The Integration of Provenance Data for the Reconstruction of the Dispersed European Book Heritage”. Read or download the English-Russian version of the paper and the Powerpoint presentation, very kindly translated by Dr. Andrei Masevich.
• Merton College, Oxford
  Workshop on Tools for Provenance and Bibliographical Research, Thursday 3 March 2011.
  Further details.
  View the PowerPoint presentations on Bodleian Libraries' Luna Image Database, the CERL Portal, the CERL Thesaurus, Early Book Owners in Britain, the Heritage of the Printed Book Database, Identifying Provenance Evidences, Material Evidence in Incunabula and Provenance queries on the CERL website.

• Soprintendenza per i beni librari e documentari, Bologna
  Workshop for colleagues from the Regione Emilia-Romagna, November 2010.
• National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
  Workshop for Russian rare-books librarians, September 2010.

• National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
  Workshop for Russian rare-books librarians, September 2009.
• Academic Library of Tallinn University
  18 June 2009.
  Further details and programme.
  
• Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich
  View the PowerPoint presentations on the Heritage of the Printed Book Database and the CERL Thesaurus. Thursday 5 March 2009.
  
• National Library of Poland and University of Warsaw Library
  Workshop on Rare Book Librarianship, Wednesday 14 January, Thursday 15 January 2009.
  Programme
  For further information, contact Monika Cornell.

• National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
  Workshop for Russian rare-books librarians, September 2008.
• National Library of Spain, Madrid
  Workshop on Rare Book Librarianship / Seminario Internacional sobre fondo antiguo, June 2008.
  The full programme is available on the web site of the Biblioteca Nacional de España where the PowerPoint presentations can be downloaded.

• Rome
  Workshop for Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma and Istituto centrale per il catalogo unico cluster libraries, December 2007.
  • Il CERL e i suoi prodotti: HPB, CERL Thesaurus, CERL Portal
  • First Search per HPB
• National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
  Workshop for Russian rare-books librarians, September 2007.
• Wellcome Library, London
  Workshop for rare books librarians in the London area, July 2007. Programme and presentations
• Yale University Library, New Haven (CT)
  June 2007.
• RBMS Conference 2007, Baltimore (MD)
  June 2007.
• Research Library, Dubrovnik
  'The European Manuscript and Hand Press Book Heritage: the role of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL)', May 2007. Programme and presentations
• Soprintendenza per i beni librari e documentari, Bologna
  Workshop for colleagues from the Regione Emilia-Romagna, February 2007.

Previous CERL workshops