The initial ideas for bringing together the Directors of national libraries of Europe had been conceived in 1986, when the Director of the National Library of Portugal invited his colleagues to Lisbon, Portugal.
In early 1987, the first meeting of 11 Directors of National Libraries of Portugal, Denmark, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, UK and Vatican took place. It laid the foundation for the Conference of European National Librarians – CENL.
Although, the first meeting and hence the actual founding year of CENL was 1987, we start with our activities this year and will present one of our member libraries every week starting in 2026 and ending up in Summer next year when we will be able to celebrate the real 40th anniversary during our Annual General Meeting in Stockholm.
