On Tuesday 14 December a meeting between took place in Rome regarding a project to update and expand the 18th century work Bibliotheca Carmelitana. Kevin Alban, Giovanni Grosso and Ton van der Gulik received Prof. Dr. Gert Melville and Dr. Coralie Zermatten from the Research Center for the Comparative History of Religious Orders of the University of Dresden, Germany. The joint venture between the Order and the Dresden research centre aims to expand our knowledge of Carmelite history with the help of a database, which will be based on the Bibliotheca Carmelitana of Cosma de Villiers of 1752. The main purpose of “Bibliotheca Carmelitana Nova”, as this project has been named, is to collect, examine and organize all the information that can be found about every single Carmelite author since the 13th century. This database will eventually be an online resource. This project is bein g jointly supported by most of the provinces in the Order and the Carmelite Institute in Rome.

The project began in August 2010 and this meeting provided an occasion for the Carmelite Institute to become acquainted with Dr. Zermatten, who is in charge of the compilation of the database. A consultative committee, which will monitor her work, was also named. It is made up of Frs. Kevin Alban, Giovanni Grosso, Paul Chandler, Ton van der Gulik, a lay Carmelite historian, Dr. Edeltraud Klueting, and Prof. Gert Melville. The first meeting of this committee will take place in March 2011 at the research institute in Dresden.