Consortium of European Research Libraries

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The Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) is a consortium of research libraries, primarily in Europe, that facilitates access to historians with an interest in the history of the book by providing online resources including the Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB), the CERL Thesaurus and the CERL Portal. The organisation also holds seminars and workshops and since 1998 has published a periodical called CERL Papers. It was founded in 1992 and since 1994 has been registered in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee, based in London. [1] Its annual general meeting is usually held in November. It is governed by a board of directors and a management team. [2] The chairman is Kristian Jensen. [3] Before Jensen, the chairman was Ulf Göranson  [ sv ], former chief librarian at the University of Uppsala, and before him, Elmar Mittler  [ de ], a German emeritus professor of library science.

Contents

Heritage of the Printed Book Database

The Heritage of the Printed Book Database, formerly the Hand Press Book Database, as of February 2014 contained almost 5 million entries for books printed during the hand press era, from the introduction of printing technology to Europe around 1450 to the mid-19th century, with descriptions facilitating comparison of variant versions. At that time 41 institutions had contributed entries, which are primarily based on examination of the item rather than on retroconversion of earlier bibliographic entries. The database is continuously updated, primarily by member institutions. [2] [4]

The HPB database was hosted by the US-based OCLC from September 2007 until 2013, and uses OCLC's FirstSearch and Connexion software. Since September 2013 it has been hosted by the German Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund  [ de ]. Access is limited to CERL member institutions and licencees.

CERL Thesaurus

The CERL Thesaurus, managed by the Data Conversion Group in Göttingen, indexes locations, printers, publishers and authors for works printed between c. 1450 and 1850, and thus serves in association with the Integrated Authority File to cross-reference variant names in printings and catalogues. [2] It is automatically updated with the Material Evidence in Incunabula database and offers links to information on provenance provided by CERL member institutions, reflecting now dispersed collections, and also includes digitised material such as images of printer's marks [5] collected by Vindel, Ronald McKerrow and Philippe Renouard and of watermarks. [2] Access to the thesaurus is free.

CERL Portal

The CERL Portal was developed by the Electronic Publishing Centre of the Uppsala University Library after the completion of the CERL Manuscripts Project. It permits combined searches of both manuscripts and printed books, in manuscript databases, the HPB and additional relevant online databases such as the English Short-Title Catalogue and photograph databases. [2] [6] Access to the portal is free.

Material Evidence in Incunabula

Material Evidence in Incunabula is a database of 15th-century printed works (incunabula) that draws on the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue of the British Library and combines them with data about individual copies. Its development was initially funded by the British Academy. [2] [7] Access to the database is free.

Member institutions

As of September 2016 the consortium has 272 members, primarily in Europe but also in Central and South America and the US. [8] Of these, single members (full fee) and special members (who pay a reduced fee) have one vote at the annual general meeting; groups of not more than 16 libraries share one vote; and cluster members associated with a single member may not vote. [2]

Related Research Articles

Incunable Book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed before the 16th century in Europe

An incunable or incunabulum, is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in Europe up to the year 1500. Incunabula are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Incunabula were produced early in the history of printing in Europe, before the printing press became widespread on the continent. Some authorities include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type.

Gutenberg Bible Among the earliest major books printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe

The Gutenberg Bible was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities as well as its historic significance. It is an edition of the Latin Vulgate printed in the 1450s by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, in present-day Germany. Forty-nine copies have survived. They are thought to be among the world's most valuable books, although no complete copy has been sold since 1978. In March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible displayed in Frankfurt to promote the edition, and that either 158 or 180 copies had been printed.

Bavarian State Library State library of Bavaria

The Bavarian State Library in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research library in Germany and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 10.89 million books, it ranks among the best research libraries worldwide. Moreover, its historical stock encompasses one of the most important manuscript collections of the world, the largest collection of incunabula worldwide, as well as numerous further important special collections. Its collection of historical prints before 1850 number almost one million units.

Göttingen State and University Library

The Göttingen State and University Library is the library for Göttingen University as well as for the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and is the state library for the German State of Lower Saxony. One of the largest German academic libraries, it has numerous national as well as international projects in librarianship and in the provision of research infrastructure services. In the year 2002, the SUB Göttingen won the German Library of the Year award. Its current director is Wolfram Horstmann.

Répertoire International des Sources Musicales Music cataloging organisation based in Germany

The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales is an international non-profit organization, founded in Paris in 1952, with the aim of comprehensively documenting extant historical sources of music all over the world. It is the largest organization of its kind and the only entity operating globally to document written musical sources. RISM is one of the four bibliographic projects sponsored by the International Musicological Society and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, the others being Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, Répertoire international d'iconographie musicale, and Répertoire international de la presse musicale.

Global spread of the printing press

The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany c. 1439. Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.

Durham University Library

The Durham University Library is the centrally administered library of Durham University in England. It was founded in January 1833 at Palace Green by a 160 volume donation by the then Bishop of Durham, William Van Mildert, and now holds over 1.6 million printed items. The University Library comprises six separate libraries:

National Library of Luxembourg

The National Library of Luxembourg, abbreviated as BnL, is Luxembourg's national library. It was founded in its current form in 1899, as a result of a series of different institutions originating in the 18th century. It is located in the Kirchberg district of Luxembourg City. The BnL is a public establishment under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture.

Folio Technical term describing the format of a book

The term "folio", from the Latin folium (leaf), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: it is firstly a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book made in this way; secondly it is a general term for a sheet, leaf or page in (especially) manuscripts and old books; and thirdly it is an approximate term for the size of a book, and for a book of this size.

The Personennamendatei or PND is an authority file of people, which served primarily to access literature in libraries. The PND has been built up between 1995 and 1998 and was published by the German National Library (DNB) until 2012. For each person there is a record with his or her name, birth and occupation connected with a unique identifier, the PND number.

Potsdam University Library

The University Library of Potsdam is the largest academic library in the German state of Brandenburg. It serves the academic community of the University of Potsdam as well as interested readers from other universities and non-university research institutes in the Potsdam and Berlin area. The library is also open to private users from the region Berlin-Brandenburg with a research or study interest.

Bernhard Bischoff was a German historian, paleographer, and philologist; he was born in Altendorf, and he died in Munich.

Bibliography of Music Literature International bibliography of literature on music

The Bibliography of Music Literature is an international bibliography of literature on music. It considers all kind of music and includes both current and older literature. Since 1968, the BMS editorial staff has also been working as the German committee for the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM). The bibliography includes monographs, master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, articles and reviews from journals, Festschriften, conference proceedings, yearbooks, anthologies, and essays from critical reports. It contains printed media as well as online resources, data media, sound recordings, audiovisual media, and microforms. Each record provides the title in the original language, full bibliographic data, a keyword index, and mostly an abstract. Currently, BMS online has more than 315,000 records of literature on music. It is supplemented by the OLC-SSG Musicology, which incorporates the contents of some more 150 music journals from 1993 onward. BMS online participates actively on Virtual Library of Musicology (ViFaMusik), the central gateway for music and musicology in Germany.

Konrad Haebler was a German (Saxonian) librarian, historian and expert on incunabula.

As of 2018, ten firms in Germany rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: C.H. Beck, Bertelsmann, Cornelsen Verlag, Haufe-Gruppe, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Ernst Klett Verlag, Springer Nature, Thieme, WEKA Holding, and Westermann Druck- und Verlagsgruppe. Overall, "Germany has some 2,000 publishing houses, and more than 90,000 titles reach the public each year, a production surpassed only by the United States." Unlike many other countries, "book publishing is not centered in a single city but is concentrated fairly evenly in Berlin, Hamburg, and the regional metropolises of Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich."

Elisabeth Niggemann German librarian

Elisabeth Niggemann is a German librarian specializing in the digitization of cultural heritage resources. From 1999 to 2019 she served as the Director General of the German National Library.

Frank Scholze German librarian (born 1968)

Frank Scholze is a German librarian. Since January 2020 he serves as the Director General of the German National Library.

Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg Würzburg University Library

The Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg is the central library of the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. As a regional library of Lower Franconia, it collects Lower Franconian literature. The Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg is maintained by the Free State of Bavaria. With 3.6 million media, it is one of the largest libraries in Bavaria.

The Bavarian Library Network is a library association of more than 150 academic libraries in Bavaria, Germany. It operates a union catalog, the Bavarian Union Catalog.

References

  1. ↑ "About CERL". Consortium of European Research Libraries. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Versprille, Ingeborg; Lefferts, Marian; Dondi, Cristina (2014). "The Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL): twenty years of promoting Europe's cultural heritage in print and manuscript". Zeitschrift für Bibliothekskultur. University of Basel. 2 (1: Konsortien & Konsorten): 30–40. doi: 10.12685/027.7-2-1-50 . ISSN   2296-0597.
  3. ↑ "CERL's Organisation".
  4. ↑ "Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB)". Consortium of European Research Libraries. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  5. ↑ "CERL Thesaurus". Consortium of European Research Libraries. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  6. ↑ "CERL Portal". Consortium of European Research Libraries. Archived from the original on 1 January 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  7. ↑ "Material Evidence in Incunabula". Consortium of European Research Libraries. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  8. ↑ "List of Members". Consortium of European Research Libraries. Retrieved 21 September 2016.

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