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…

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…

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…

Leiden University has awarded its prestigious University Medal to Emeritus Professor Lex van der Eb. As a pioneer in genetics and molecular biology, he received this honour for his services to science and his key role in the development of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

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

Symposium

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…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has made 45,000 digitised daguerreotypes, autochrome plates, photo prints, albums, cameras and other objects from its photography collections available through Digital Collections. This means that parts of the oldest photo collection in the Netherlands are now digitally…

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.

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…

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…

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.

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.…

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).

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.’

Lecture

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture, Film Screening

Workshop | In contact with collections

Lecture, Studium Generale

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.

In the past half a century, China has transformed from an underdeveloped and inward-looking country to a major player in world politics. The country asserts itself more boldly on the world stage; not only in relation to nearby countries and places such as Taiwan, Japan, and other countries that share…

Three cholera epidemics struck 19th-century Leiden. Today’s corona epidemic prompted Martijn Storms, curator of maps and atlases at the Leiden University Libraries, to scour the library for maps about these past epidemics.

Curators devote a lot of attention to their collections. How is Martijn Storms, curator of maps and atlases at Leiden University Libraries, managing to do this now he is working from home? And how is Silvia Vermetten digitising Eastern manuscripts from home?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, now thirty years ago, Russia lost much of its former prestige, influence, and territory. The ascent of Vladimir Putin initiated a turning point: Russia has once again developed itself into a major player on the world stage, garnering ever more influence in its…

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…