UBL recently received a donation of some five hundred books on the Italian occupation of Libya and on Arabic linguistics. UBL gratefully acknowledges this donation by a Leiden University alumnus.

Leiden scholars study clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia. But what exactly does the cuneiform script say?

The board of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) has agreed on June 27 on a plan for closer collaboration with Leiden University and the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO). The plan includes the launch of a NINO research institute with an annual budget of approximately 300.000 euro.

Leiden University has an active open science community. Open science means transparency in all phases of research by precisely documenting every step of the way and making this publicly available. ‘It’s time to be open,’ say psychologists Anna van ’t Veer and Zsuzsika Sjoerds. There is increasing awareness…

How does a Leiden alumnus end up working at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)? In the case of Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, it was partly down to chance, luck, fate. But that was preceded by a unique degree in decorative arts in Leiden.

With its more than 1400 bindings and over a thousand fragments Leiden’s collection of medieval manuscripts (up to ca. 1550) is the largest in the Netherlands.

A team including staff from Leiden University won the Open Initiative Trophy on 11 February, a prize for the best open science initiative in the Netherlands. The winners developed Reprohak, a hackathon-like event where participants repeat research to see whether the results were reproducible.

As of February 1st, 2018, Sarah de Rijcke has been appointed as Professor of Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, especially Science and Evaluation Studies, at Leiden University. The chair is located at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS).

In March 2018 with the support of the Van de Sande Foundation Dr. Abdolbaset Ghorbani Dahaneh (Uppsala University) will research the sixteenth-century Rauwolff Herbarium and its botanical sources in Leiden University Libraries. On Wednesday, March 14, during the Clusius Symposium Ghorbani will give…

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.

Can you still remember the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, or the Dutch royal state visit to Indonesia in 1971? These are only a few of the dramatic events covered by Hans Beynon, whose archive of 7.000 photos was recently donated to the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) by his family.

Leiden University Libraries has been elected to the Executive Committee of the IIIF Consortium. The term of office is two years starting from January 2022.

Network meeting

Senior lecturer Rick Honings has been appointed Scaliger professor with effect from 1 July 2020. In the coming years his focus will be on promoting teaching and research on the Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. Honings succeeds book historian Erik Kwakkel, who held this chair until…

This Subject Guide is designed to support students of Japan studies at Leiden University in their research process. For every step of the research process, this guide introduces a number of tips and recommended resources. You can find several sub-guides and contacts in the 'quick links' in the tab on…

The war against Ukraine did not start in February 2022, but in the spring of 2014 when Russia suddenly annexed Crimea and supported separatist militias in the Donbas. Last year, president Putin called for a restored geopolitical and spiritual trinity of Greater Russians, Belarusians and Lesser Russians…

With support of several publishers and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guests per year to consult and research materials from our Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received many applications this year from…

Persian stories with beautiful miniatures, letters on papyrus from Egyptian traders and medicinal manuscripts translated from Greek and edited in Arabic. Studium Generale organizes a lecture series on the world-famous manuscripts from the Middle East collection of Leiden University Libraries (UBL).…

The climate crisis, the return of TB and the digitisation of cultural heritage. The Netherlands and Indonesia face many of the same challenges. A visit by a delegation from Leiden University to Indonesia at the end of June highlighted the benefits of cooperation.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Art & Art History

Overview of databases, reference works and website for research in the History of Science

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will head a delegation that is visiting Indonesia at the end of June. The visit is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Leiden’ institute KITLV-Jakarta. What does this institute do and why is Indonesia important to the University?

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…

Historians recently started preliminary research on Leiden University’s role in colonialism and historical slavery. Our knowledge about this is too limited and fragmented. They are looking with fresh eyes at Leiden’s archives and collections. An interview with historians Alicia Schrikker and Ligia G…

The research suggestions below may be suitable for a bachelor's or master's thesis or can be used as additional source material in ongoing research.

Welcome to the Sub-guide for North Korea. This Sub-guide is designed for students looking to locate, access and use a wide variety of scholarly and non-scholarly sources which are either (1) published or produced in North Korea or (2) about North Korea. This Sub-guide is a part of the General Subject…

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

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.

As Professor of Literature, Culture and Law, Frans Willem Korsten explores the interplay between literature and law. These are two disciplines that most people wouldn’t immediately connect, but Korsten can see a lot of common ground between them. ‘A fictional story can have a huge impact on law.’

On August 30, the online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia was launched. The platform provides access to over 1,400 digitised maps of Southeast Asia from the collections of the National Library Board Singapore (307 maps), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Yale University (150 maps),…

With support of several publishers and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guests per year to consult and research materials from our Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received applications this year from domestic…

In 2023, it will be fifty years since Vietnam and the Netherlands established diplomatic relations. This will be commemorated in both countries. At the beginning of November, outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. On that occasion Leiden University Libraries will launch…

Arts and culture

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

Overview of reference works, journals and website for research in Gender and Women’s studies of Japan

Colonial art and artefacts were not necessarily looted. Pieter ter Keurs, Professor of Museums, Collections and Society, calls for more nuance in the debate on art and collectors’ items from a loaded past. Inaugural speech on 2 December.

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…

Over 160 years ago, the Hague-based photography pioneer and traveler Alexine Tinne (1835-1869) captured current South Sudan and its inhabitants on film. These photographs represent some of the earliest images taken in the heart of the African continent.

In less than a week’s time, millions of Turkish people are going to decide who will govern their country for the next five years. These elections promise to be the most closely contested in years, with the opinion polls showing very small differences and everything at stake, including for Europe. Alp…

Private collectors John Steegh and Harrie Teunissen from Dordrecht have donated their entire collection of maps, city plans and atlases to Leiden University Libraries (UBL). In almost 40 years they brought together circa 17,000 map sheets and 2,300 atlases and travel guides. Especially the thematic…

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our region witnessed the comings and goings of various types of hominin. This depended on the temperature as ice ages alternated with warmer periods. In ‘De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen’ (‘The First Humans in the Low Countries’) Leiden archaeologists Yannick Raczynski-Henk…

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 research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

With the addition of over 16,500 new catalogue records, the collection of Johannes Tiberius Bodel Nijenhuis (1797-1872) is now almost entirely searchable online. The private collection of the Leiden map collector laid the foundation for the special collection of maps and atlases of Leiden University.…

Lecture

Lecture, Film Screening

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture, Studium Generale