The organisation also makes grants to librarians, holds seminars and workshops, and since 1998 has published a periodical called CERL Papers.
It was founded in 1992 and since 2021 has been registered in the Republic of Ireland as a company limited by guarantee, based in Dublin.
[1] The Consortium of European Research Libraries is governed by a board of directors and a management team.
[7] 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[8] collected by Vindel, Ronald McKerrow and Philippe Renouard and of watermarks.