* Remote systems (z39.50), which will time-out if too many variant forms are added

After a period of planning investigation and development which began in 2000, the CERL Portal went live in November 2005. All these years, CERL has been fortunate enough to have been able to rely on the Electronic Publishing Centre (EPC) of Uppsala University Library for the hosting, development and maintenance of the CERL Portal, and Ivan Boserup of the Royal Library in Denmark, Copenhagen, who worked tirelessly with EPC to further enhance the CERL Portal interface, and to interest creators of manuscript databases in allowing CERL Portal access to their data.

In the course of 2018, the CERL Board of Directors asked for a review of the CERL Portal. It became clear that the Z39.50 technology used in the Portal (in addition to OAI harvesting) was not so reliable any more, that the scope of the Portal and the materials of the various databases it brought together was eclectic, and that the use figures for the CERL Portal were very low, resulting in an uncomfortable cost per search ratio. Although it is always difficult to decide to discontinue a service, the CERL Directors agreed that whilst the CERL Portal had been a service that fulfilled a need at the time it was created, this need was clearly no longer felt by students of manuscripts, and that the CERL Portal would be closed down on 30 April 2020.

As the current chairman of the CERL Portal Working Group, Anders Toftgaard (KB Denmark) together with members of the CERL Manuscripts Experts Working Group, chaired by Scot McKendrick (British Library), have set up a programme of work to determine whether the manuscripts community requires a new CERL Manuscripts Portal, and if they do, what the focus should be, what types of facilities would be required, and which representatives of national and regional manuscripts databases would be interested in jointly developing such a service. Please contact marian.lefferts@cerl.org if you require further information.