Marian Lefferts

YouTube video by CERL – Consortium of European Research Libraries Cataloguing Provenance at CRAI Library | Maria Ruiz Fargas & Laia Navarro de Llobet

📢 New on our YouTube channel:

Maria Ruiz Fargas & Laia Navarro de Llobet explore cataloguing provenance at UB’s CRAI Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

🎥 Watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlnN...

#bookhistory

Poster for CERL seminar on Founding Collections (at the Guildhall, London on 5 December 2025)

Join us for this hybrid event on Founding Collections, taking place on 5 December 2025 and hosted by the @guildhalllibrary.bsky.social

Programme and registration details on www.cerl.org/services/sem...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

In this latest blogpost at CERL, Tomás de Brito introduces Argentina's Ediciones Ampersand to fellow CERL members.

Conference poster CERL Seminar on Founding Collection at NLS Edinburgh on 20 October 2025

Really looking forward to the CERL annual seminar tomorrow. This year on Founding Collections and hosted by the wonderful National Library of Scotland. Such a joy to be back in Edinburgh, getting to hang out with friends old and new

www.cerl.org/services/sem...

‘Universiteit kan geen vrijplaats voor feitenvrije meningen zijn’ Dat de academische vrijheid onder druk staat, komt niet door de ‘linkse cancelcultuur’, betogen universitair docent Dick Zijp en universitair hoofddocent Mirko Tobias Schäfer. Zij hekelen de beeldvorm...

NOS/Nieuwsuur maakte vorige week een alarmistisch item over onvrije debatcultuur aan Nederlandse universiteiten. Mirko Tobias Schäfer en ik schreven er een opiniestuk over: 'Dat de academische vrijheid onder druk staat, komt niet door linkse cancelcultuur.'

dub.uu.nl/nl/opinie/un...

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Tomáš Klimek of the National Library of the Czech Republic marks the 900th anniversary of the death of the Czech chronicler Cosmas, with new research, an exhibition and a catalogue - all coming out this year.

Zigzag Calendars: A case study in outreach with schools at Lambeth Palace Library Dr Sarah M. Griffin, Curator of Unfolding Time: The Medieval Pocket Calendar From February to May 2025, Lambeth Palace Library hosted Unfolding Time: The Medieval Pocket Calendar.[1] The exhibition brought together a rare and remarkable type of medieval folded book for the first time—the concertina-fold almanac—and set them alongside treasures from Lambeth’s own collection. Folded in a zigzag pattern to form a neat, easily transportable packet of information, their playful form is emphasised by their colourful and almost entirely pictorial content, all of which relates to time.

Dr Sarah Griffin of Lambeth Palace Library describes their experiences with a workshop that introduced children to medieval folded calendars

The Democratization of Library Heritage Collections By Louise Amazan, Daryl Green & Garrelt Verhoeven (IFLA RBSC) Introduction On April 24th 2025 the Standing Committee for Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) of IFLA and CERL’s Bookbinding group joined together for a seminar at the Bibliothèque National de France. With the title Médiations du patrimoine en bibliothèque: enjeux et perspectives / Meditations on Libraries and Heritage Collections…

The Democratization of Library Heritage Collections

By Louise Amazan, Daryl Green & Garrelt Verhoeven (IFLA RBSC) Introduction On April 24th 2025 the Standing Committee for Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) of IFLA and CERL’s Bookbinding group joined together for a seminar at the…

CERL - Consortium of European Research Libraries - is now on Blue Sky.

Our mission is to connect European book heritage with the world.

Expect to see news on rare books, manuscripts and events from our community.

www.cerl.org

Give us a follow!

Where do European early imprints pop up? Attend this online seminar and find out! Please obtain your zoom link from secretariat@cerl.org

Never Finish(ed) Buch | Harrassowitz Verlag

We published the papers of the first RNB conference:

Never Finish(ed)
The Vitality and Dynamics of Retrospective ‘National’ Bibliographies for European Print Cultures to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. DOI: 10.13173/9783447123563

Free download: www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/titel_8452.a...

The next CERL event is only a month away! I warmly invite you to come to KBR Brussels for

Mapping Knowledge: Collaboration of Retrospective National Bibliograhies with research and heritage projects

The programme is here: www.cerl.org/services/sem...

We aim to publish the papers

Celebrating 20 years of Sustainable Heritage at UCL Join us for this celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Sustainable Heritage MSc programme at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage.

I'm looking forward to discussing 'What can heritage do for society in the future?' at the '20 years of Sustainable Heritage at UCL' celebration on June 12

Some tickets still available www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/eve...

Electronic Legal Deposit materials are back online in 5 legal deposit reading rooms after the British Library cyberattack! Hurrah. But not in London yet. ICYDK, this encompasses vast swathes of modern digital texts including journal papers & books, & other media. Great to see it back!

The English Short Title Catalogue is back online #ESTC datb.cerl.org/estc

Very true. And it's a sector with high economic benefits. Universities UK report an economic impact of £158bn, or £265bn including the impact of international students. Every £1 of public money invested into UK universities generates £14 of economic benefit. www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/news/...

9:20 ‹ Back へく 9:03 AM odh@neh.gov To: Elizabeth, Margaret & 1 more... › Information about your NEH Grant Application HT-308154 You don't often get email from odh@neh.gov. Learn why. this is important This is to inform you that NEH Grant Application HT-308154 for project "Null Results: Dealing with Failure in the Digital Humanities" has been withdrawn by the NEH. Thank you so much for applying to the NEH's Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities. Unfortunately, all the programs under the Office of Digital Humanities have been cancelled. So we are unable to review your proposal and have marked it as Withdrawn by Agency in our system. I realize that writing a proposal takes a long time and I'm so sorry we can't fund your excellent work anymore. thanks, Brett Bobley Director, Office of Digital Humanities 血 口 介 囗

Dissolution of the Office of Digital Humanities is confirmed. #DigitalHumanities

Explore Pigment Analysis in Historical Manuscripts Online. in this CERL blog post, Charlotte Denoël, Head of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts Service, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscripts Department introduces the new database 'Fabrique de l' art.

More than ever, history and historians need a collaborative and co-ordinated approach 26th February 2025

We are increasingly concerned about the crisis in UK Higher Education. Read our joint statement with @royalhistsoc.bsky.social , History UK and the @histassoc.bsky.social https://buff.ly/4hSg16N #history #skystorians

the loss of @neh-odh.bsky.social @nehgov.bsky.social and IMLS will undoubtedly impact humanities and digital humanities research and teaching for decades to come. Worse is the separation of the incredible staffs at those agencies who have decades of stewardship and leadership in cultural heritage.

IMLS is required by law to administer their grants to states and grants to tribal libraries programs. ALA shared the letter the IMLS Board sent to the Acting Director—and quotint chapter and verse of the U.S. Code that delineates their authorities. Dear Congress www.ala.org/sites/defaul...

Our latest blog post is by Dr Matthias Reif, Senior Librarian at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek on his experiences with the International Library Leaders Programme of the British Library.

An important call to arms for the study of languages, cultures and society.

Digital collection of oldest English language daily newspaper to be boosted The News Letter was first published in September 1737.

A Monday morning good news story: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Want some fragmentary fun? Then join us at the London Palaeography Seminar next Tuesday, 11th March, to hear Dr Fran Alvarez on 'The Importance of being a Host' with new finds from Exeter and Salamanca. 5:30pm Senate House and online. Sign up here:
ies.sas.ac.uk/events/impor...

Any idea what this is? Medieval bird trap? Type of bird? Duck? Date? Similar images? Bronze, gilt, 3.5 x 4.5 cm. Thanks! #medievalbluesky #birds

Who's up for a challenge? Some 16th-century Middle English handwriting is proving quite difficult to decipher, as part of our historical context study of CUL MS Dd.15.25, a 15th-century Horae. Any help or insights would be greatly appreciated! #Paleography #BookofHours #MiddleEnglish

"The most important group of medieval manuscripts from the Special Collections of the University Libraries of Leiden (UBL), the Codices Vossiani Latini, is now available in open access via the Digital Collections." www.library.universiteitleiden.nl/news/2025/01...