When making available the heritage collections for study and research extra measures are taken to minimize risks and optimize conditions for use.

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

Leiden University teachers wishing to stream audiovisual materials during online classes, can book the University Library's media room (ground floor) for this purpose.

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.

The collection of prints was started through a donation from the aristocrat Jean Theodore Royer, who bequeathed some 20,000 prints to the university in 1815. The collection has expanded through further donations and some major purchases. The nucleus consists of Dutch graphic art from 1500 until now.…

The Western manuscript, archival and letter collections consist of books and documents written in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic script.

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.

Armed with sunglasses, a thick layer of sunscreen and several bottles of water, over 3,300 students have arrived in Leiden for their introduction week. The start of the 55th EL CID happened to be on the hottest day of the year.

FeedbackFruits (FbF) is a digital teaching tool accessible via Brightspace. Below you will find how to use FbF in compliance with copyright rules.

Conditions are attached to the use of information sources (databases) provided by UBL.

The photographs collection of Leiden University Librarie (UBL) contains specimens of almost all photographic processes from the history of the medium, rare objects and artistic highlights. Together, they shed light on the history of photography as a technique, a means of scientific, historic and personal…

Explanation and background of Dutch copyright

Library

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

A number of tools and services are available to help you keep up to date with the latest developments in your subject field.

Book reviews give you a quick overview of the main arguments, quality and structure of a book.

Do you need help with writing your thesis or do you have a question about using the library? Take a look at the sources below.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) owns over 5 million paper materials. Loanable items can be picked up and returned at the UBL library location of your choice.

Workshop

Leiden University’s Rector Magnificus, Professor Hester Bijl, has been reappointed for a second term by the Board of Governors.

Organisation

Library

Library exhibitions, both online and physical, give an idea of the breadth of our collections.

The Juynboll Foundation and the Scaliger Institute of Leiden University Libraries have founded a collaborative fellowship program to enable one or two scholars to study the Arabic and Islam special collections of Leiden University Libraries. The allowance is € 1,500 per month.

The library provides access to a large collection of e-books. Below you can find answers to the most relevant questions on how to find and successfully access these e-books.

A lot has happened at Cluster Zuid since the highest point of the building was reached in December. See the photo report below.

Our banking, DigiD and sensitive medical data: what if our entire digital infrastructure can no longer be trusted? Jelle Don has this question permanently in mind as he goes about his research. And that is no bad thing because without new digital security measures, our society will be extremely vuln…

Sexual harassment was the theme of the recent annual symposium of student ambassadors to the Leiden-Bollenstreek police in collaboration with the police and the municipality. An extremely important issue to students − if the 100 places being claimed as soon as the symposium was announced was anything…

Today is World Philosophy Day. We asked three staff members from the Leiden Institute for Philosophy to name three of their favourite works from the Leiden University Library (UBL) collections. What is: the best introduction to philosophy, the best philosophical work published in the last few years…

Het schilderij van Rein Dool waarop voormalig bestuurders van de Universiteit Leiden zijn afgebeeld, is verhuisd naar de Receptieruimte van het Academiegebouw.

The Dutch Revolt or Eighty Years’ War and the Dutch Golden Age have traditionally been described in the national historiography as glorious periods; with the Dutch Revolt being depicted as a heroic battle for independence and the Dutch Golden Age as an unparalleled political, economic and cultural success…

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…

Ornately decorated head pieces and jewellery, images of imposing mosques and photos of local people. The 'Splendours of the Silk Roads' exhibition depicts life and different cultures along this important trade route.

Japan museum SieboldHuis has a new showcase in its panorama room, in which maps from the Siebold-collection of Leiden University Libraries are exhibited.

A systematic review answers a central question by summarising (all) relevant studies.

Beatrice Gründler, professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Freie Universität Berlin, will receive an honorary doctorate in Oriental Manuscript Studies from Leiden University.

From mid-September two exhibitions with maps from the collections of Leiden University Libraries are on view. Mapping Asia opens in the National Museum of Ethnology and Mapping Japan in Japanmuseum SieboldHuis. The exhibitions are organised in the context of Leiden Asia Year and the symposium 'Mapping…

On 15 March, the Centre for Digital Scholarship at Leiden University Libraries has started the pilot ‘You share we take care’. In cooperation with Leiden University researchers, the program aims to make publications freely available six months after initial publication. More than 60 researchers from…

Education, Library, Research

The people behind the Leiden University Libraries aim to maintain the level of their services to clients as much as possible. They are making thankful use of internet, but not everything can be put online.

Charlotte Poot (31) is co-founder and chair of Hospital Hero, an app that prepares children for a hospital visit. She studied and obtained her PhD at the LUMC.

How do you move 3,000 fragile clay tablets that date back thousands of years? This was the challenge faced by staff from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO). After years of preparation, the Liagre Böhl collection has been moved on trolleys to its new home.

From time to time, manuscripts that have remained hidden for centuries turn up in library collections and archives. In the archives of the 17th-century Bibliotheca Thysiana at the Rapenburg in Leiden, kept in the Leiden University Library, Rotterdam researcher Erik-Jan Bos discovered a hitherto unknown…