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In December 2000 about 40 manuscript librarians from Europe met in Stockholm answering the initiative of Anders Burius, manuscript librarian of the Royal Library of Sweden. The participating colleagues agreed in forming an Expert Group of Manuscript Librarians under the auspices of LIBER. In July 2001 LIBER's General Conference in London formally approved the Expert Group. In February 2002 the Provisional Board elected in Stockholm, constituted itself. André Bouwman (The Netherlands) became chairman, Anders Burius (Sweden) secretary, Eef Overgauw (Germany), Bernard Meehan (Ireland) and Felix Heinzer (Germany) became members of the Board, all for the period 2002-2004. At the end of the Stockholm Conference Els van Eijck, deputy general director of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the national library of the Netherlands, invited the European manuscript librarians to hold the second conference in The Hague. This article deals with the results of that second conference, actually held from 5 - 8 March in The Hague.

The prominent Dutch poet and secretary to Frederick Henry, Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), was a true homo universalis. He was also a diplomat, an art connoisseur, a bibliophile, collector, musician, and a scholar. Mainly by means of his correspondence, he maintained a vast network of contactsreaching 'everybody who mattered' in the Dutch Golden Age. It is estimated that Huygens wrote and received more than 100 000 letters; of these only 10 000 have survived. In the early twentieth century, Huygens's correspondence was published by J. A. Worp. While Worp's work was exemplary, his editorial principles and practices fail to meet today's current scholarly standards. For example, Worp sometimes published abstracts of letters, rather than the letters themselves. He also selectively omitted letters that he deemed 'unimportant'. Several years ago the Huygens Institute of Dutch History began to create a new digital edition of Huygens's letters. This online edition of Huygens's correspondence reveals new perspectives on Huygens and on his work and writing. In addition to the newly discovered letters that now have been published, the digital edition also facilitates research on Huygens's varied use of language in letters to people, depending on their social strata. New analysis of his letters also grants insights into how Huygens communicated with the women of his time.

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