Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in religious studies.

The Middle Eastern Special Collections form the nucleus of the entire range of Oriental heritage collections of Leiden University Libraries.

The Southeast Asian Special Collections contain text and audiovisual materials pertaining to the languages, histories, philosophies, religions, literatures, and (material) art of the region. The focus lies on the Malay world, in particular on the Nederlands-Indies/Indonesia. Apart from books and periodicals…

The UBL develop collections which support the needs of faculty and students of the University.

The special collections of Leiden University Libraries offer access to worldwide known valuable, rare, and unique materials. The collections are actively complemented and made accessible for research and education.

In addition to the Bodel Nijenhuis Collection, the map collections of the former library of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), and the map collection of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), the collection of Maps and Atlases includes several smaller sub…

Special books, drawings, photos and other source material in the UBL collections can be found at the Special Collections department. You can’t borrow these materials, but you can request them via the catalogue and consult them in the library. Planning your first visit to the Special Collections reading…

The South Asian and Tibetan special collections provide material pertaining to the languages, histories, philosophies, art and material cultures of the region. The focus lies on Sanskrit, Tibetan, Lepcha, and Buddhism, but the collections also hold rich visual material for educational and academic purposes…

The Chinese Special Collections are part of the Asian Library. Items can be consulted at the Special Collections Reading Room.

The Asian special collections comprise tens of thousands of rare books, thousands of manuscripts, maps, prints, drawings and photographs, and hundreds of archives.

The Special Collections of Leiden University Libraries contain a world-renowned and vast collection of old prints, manuscripts, archives, prints, drawings and photography. Our collections are accessible to Leiden researchers and students, as well as external researchers and other interested parties.

The main focus of the Islamic World Special Collections is on the Middle East and North Africa, with smaller holdings from Indonesia, the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia as far as Xinjiang, China.

There are several excellent options for teachers and researchers to engage students and other audiences with primary sources. Either by requesting items from the Special Collections for use during lectures or by integrating our educational resources into your lesson plans.

The special collections from Japan and Korea are located at the central library building at Witte Singel, where it forms a part of the Asian Library.

Digital Collections contains over 500,000 digitized primary sources, reference works and digital born materials held by Leiden University Libraries. In this repository you will find digital facsimiles of prints, drawings, photographs, maps and archival documents; digital facsimiles of manuscript books…

Would you like to work with the Special Collections during your studies?

The Library of Leiden University holds c. 550 manuscripts and an extensive collection of rare printed books in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, the languages of Ethiopia, South Arabic, Coptic and Armenian, as well as a collection of rare books on the Jewish World.

They might not have had Twitter, but they did have brochures (pamphlets), the Roman Catholics and ‘modern’ Protestants between 1840 and 1870. In these, they launched a passionate attack on each other’s ideas. Ineke Smit has catalogued the brochures from the collection of the University Library and outlined…

More than 2000 objects from the Middle Eastern collection at Leiden University Libraries (UBL) have been made available online through Digital Collections. These collections mostly consist of written works in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac, but also contain printed works and the…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has made more than 20.000 maps, atlases and topographical prints and drawings available in Digital Collections. With this, a significant part of one of the largest and most important collections of maps and atlases in the Netherlands has now been made digitally available…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) recently participated in the Pagode-Europeana-China project as an associated partner. As a result, almost two hundred items related to China from the UBL Special Collections are now available via the Europeana website. The UBL was the only library to participate in…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has made more than five hundred medieval handwritten text sources available online via Digital Collections. This makes a third of her collection of Western medieval manuscripts – one of the largest and the most important in the Netherlands – available in high resolution…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL), the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) and the Nederlands Fotogenootschap would like to invite you for the symposium ‘Holy Land’ and Modernity: the Frank Scholten Collection in Context’ and hands-on viewing of Frank Scholten photographs and albums on Monday…

The UBL and the Friends of the Kern Institute (VVIK) signed a loan agreement for the collection of South Asia, especially India, and Tibet.