UBL, Leiden University Libraries, is doing all it can to continue to offer its services. Even now the motto is, ‘work from home’. Who is doing want and how are things going?

Leiden University Libraries has a huge collection of books, journals and other materials to help you in your studies, both physical and online. Most of these materials can be requested through the Catalogue. Take a look at the video's below to learn how to borrow items or read about how to read books…

There is a reasonable chance that you came to this reading list through a social medium. Now it's our job to keep your attention. We are going to do our best. There are so many distractions; from notifications on your phone, to another screen near you, that may also be screaming for attention. Every…

In order to keep pace with the demands of the 21st century and its rapidly changing work environment, students and professionals need to display a new, specific range of qualities. To cope with the changing job market, you have to be resourceful, resilient and reflective.

“Digital Scholarship” comprises the many different ways in which researchers can make use of digital technologies for the purpose of academic research.

According to a rough estimate the western manuscripts collections and (private) archives contain some 500,000 letters, of which over 300,000 are catalogued. The letters kept in the University archives are not catalogued; the same holds for most letters kept in the oriental collections. They can be found…

Would you like to have your monograph published Open Access? This is becoming ever so attractive. Authors and publishers are increasingly discovering that online publication stimulates higher sales numbers of paper books.

The First Americans exhibition in the National Museum of Ethnology showcases the resilience and creativity of native Americans. Striking artworks, fashion and prints show that the past is never far away. Artist Jacob Meders was inspired by 16th-century prints from the Leiden University Library. The…

Leiden University celebrates its 444th anniversary in 2019, and a special age requires a special logo. The logo for the celebration was designed by Clara Lezla, a student at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague.

Finding solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the not-inconsiderable task of the new Peace Academy in The Hague. Professor Maurits Berger and twelve students from different conflict zones are starting a creative thinking process that aims to discover the basic conditions for peace in the…

A renewed agreement between VSNU and the publisher Taylor & Francis for 2016 and 2017 offers the opportunity for Leiden researchers to publish open access without additional costs in all hybrid journals published by Taylor & Francis and Routledge. We consider this to be an important step towards facilitating…

CDS staff cooperate with colleagues from Leiden and other universities and libraries in giving training sessions, workshops and presentations. They (co)authored a diverse set of publications dealing with Digital Scholarship.

Open Access provides free online availability of research output without restrictions. Open Access increases the visibility of a publication enormously. The Executive Board has decided that Leiden University will endorse Open Access.

Scholarly Publications is a sustainable archive for Leiden University’s publications, which researchers themselves can make Open Access by means of an upload via LUCRIS.

In 2018, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has worked on a project in which all researchers affiliated with Leiden University were encouraged to create an Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) for themselves. ORCID is an international system for the persistent and unique identification…

Goldband, Skrillex, Róisín Murphy and... quantum: the latter may not be a band but is part of the Lowlands line-up nonetheless. Scientists from Leiden University are using the festival for research on the very smallest particles.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) reveals the total environmental impact of products or production processes, and EU rules are going to make this even more important.

Students from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK) designed the 450 lustrum logo.

On 11th February 2021 ZonMw and Health~Holland jointly launched the call 'Citizen Science voor Gezondheid en Zorg (CS4GZ)'.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has donated over 3000 historic photographs and prints on the Dutch East Indies, China, Japan, Singapore and Suriname to Wikimedia Commons, the image database of Wikipedia.

Use LUCRIS and Scholarly Publications to share, promote, and store your publications.

Open Access will be on the international agenda from 22 to 28 October 2018. Dutch Minister for Education, Culture and Science Ingrid van Engelshoven says she is proud the Netherlands is in the vanguard of the Open Access movement. ‘Publicly funded research should also be publicly accessible. That is…

The FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles are a framework for researchers to make their scholarly output ready for use and reuse by machines and humans (including themselves and peers). Making scholarly output more FAIR provides a range of benefits to the research community,…

Brightspace is the electronic learning environment of Leiden University.

From now on publications of Leiden researchers can be found in the fully renewed Leiden University Scholarly Publications Repository. This newest version of the repository includes improved presentation of Leiden research output and allows for better findability in search engines. As a result of the…

Hans Slabbekoorn is specialised in animal sounds. On 1 July, he was appointed professor of Acoustic ecology and behaviour. A great honour, according to the new professor. ‘This job never gets boring, whether I am investigating the urban jungle or marine noise.’

Do you frequently search the catalogue of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) for western medieval manuscripts? Then you must have noticed important changes lately. Some 1800 summary catalogue records in Dutch were replaced by more elaborate descriptions in English. Furthermore, the catalogue interface…

Comic books and graphic novels are more important than ever in the Leiden University curriculum. That is why Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is currently working on expansion of its collections in this field. Yasco Horsman, University Lecturer at LUCAS, explains why this expansion is necessary and…

2020 will go down in the history books as an eventful year. The traces left by the coronavirus this year will remain, for students as well as staff at Leiden Law School. A review of the year in photos and videos.

Over 30.000 pages of new material have been added to the online collection of unofficial poetry publications from China in the Leiden Digital Collections. Produced outside the system, these journals and books are hugely influential yet very hard to find. To address this paradox, Leiden University Libraries…

The importance of science communication and cross-boundary collaboration, and the ‘mantra’ of diminishing social cohesion in society: these all came up at Leiden University’s 448th Dies Natalis. A panel discussion including Leiden’s mayor Lenferink, music and two honorary doctorates completed the special…

Han Meyer, Carola Hein, Paul van de Laar and Sabine Luning, argue that in the current moment of major crises these ship channels necessitate radical reconsideration.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Middle Eastern Studies

Overview of reference works, journals and website for research in Politics and International Relations of Japan

‘Praesidium Libertatis is a daily responsibility.’ These were the words of Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker on 8 February during the 443rd Dies Natalis of Leiden University. The University needs to pay continuous attention to open debate if it wants to remain a bastion of freedom.

Several of the most important manuscript collections in the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) Special Collections, comprising 443 extremely rare and often unique volumes, have been made available in Open Access via Digital Collections. The available manuscript collections include the private collections…

Dutch troops, judges and politicians collectively condoned and concealed the systematic use of extreme violence during the Indonesian War of Independence. Historians have now shown how this could happen. ‘It was scandal management rather than prevention,’ says Leiden historian and research leader Gert…

The airspace had almost closed last year as Leiden students and staff rushed to leave the Netherlands Institute Morocco (NIMAR). How is this Leiden institute in Rabat doing over a year later? ‘Luckily we’d done a crisis exercise a few months before. Everyone managed leave the country in time.’

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many staff of Leiden institutes abroad to leave their posts in a hurry. How is the KITLV Jakarta team doing now? Director Marrik Bellen talks about the turbulent times for this Leiden institute and its staff. And can we learn anything from the Indonesian approach?

The democratic legal order can only function optimally if there is sufficient trust between citizens and government. Citizens must be able to trust that rules and procedures are observed and that legal protection is guaranteed for everyone at all times and everywhere. This trust has been seriously damaged…

For years now, the debate around Black Pete in the Netherlands has been one of the most controversial topics in the public sphere. And the intensity of the debate hasn’t waned much over time. According to some, Black Pete is just a character in a harmless tradition aimed at children, while others speak…

Writers are not just storytellers: with their novels, tales and critiques they broaden the social imagination, reflect on societal developments and sometimes put new themes on the map. This can easily lead to a conflict because writers and literati often think very differently about issues such as…