The Conference of European National Librarians (CENL) is a foundation under Dutch law that aims to increase and reinforce the role of national libraries in Europe, in particular with respect to their responsibilities in maintaining the national cultural heritage and ensuring the accessibility of knowledge in that field. CENL is made up of the national librarians of all member states of the Council of Europe. The conference currently comprises 47 members from 45 European countries (2007).

The objectives of CENL are to support European national libraries in their role to: (i) give everybody fast, comprehensive, multilingual and long term access to their collections and information, wherever appropriate without cost; (ii) build the European Digital Library; (iii) safeguard the European national cultural heritage and knowledge of research and development to improve the user services of national libraries; (iv) promote cultural diversity and multilingualism as basic values of European culture; and (v) co-operate with other cultural heritage institutions, universities, publishers and information providers on a European as well as on a global level.

The National and University Library (NUK) is a CENL library and NUK’s Vilenka Jakac Bizjak is a member of CENL’s Executive Committee.