Welcome to Leiden University Libraries (UBL).

All Leiden University Libraries' locations are accessible to people with disabilities or health impairments. Our staff will be happy to assist all visitors requiring specific assistance navigating the library buildings or services.

Leiden University has several library locations. These libraries are part of one organisation: Leiden University Libraries (UBL). The UBL includes the University Library, the Social and Behavioural Sciences Library, the Law Library, the Science Library, the Asian Library, the Middle Eastern Library, the African…

Leiden University alumni and PhD graduates can continue to use library facilities free of charge.

An overview of all Leiden University Libraries' opening hours

They have known each other since they were small but Rianne and Tom first fell in love when working together at the university. That love culminated in a fairytale wedding amid all the revelry last 3 October.

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

Brightspace is the electronic learning environment of Leiden University.

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

VSNU, NFU, NWO and Elsevier have agreed publishing, reading and open science services to support Dutch research and innovation ambitions.

The Caribbean as we know it today is fundamentally a product of colonial activity and globalisation. Practically everyone that inhabits the Caribbean has ancestors from different continents due to colonial activity, which profoundly affects the area to this day. Caribbean writers, both in the Caribbean…

Organisation

Early 2022, the UKB consortium renewed a number of 'read and publish' contracts with major publishers.

Yes. We keep books. But the University Library offers so much more! 11 things that you might not expect from a University Library, but that you will certainly appreciate.

From 28 April onwards, national curfew restrictions will be lifted. Library opening hours will be adapted.

European research infrastructures must become more sustainable in order to make the most of their scientific potential and thus increase European competitiveness, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) states in a report.

Education, Facility, Library, Research, Social

Research into our history of colonialism and slavery, heart-to-heart conversations at a Keti Koti table, exhibitions, lectures and podcasts that establish the link between present and past. Staff and students participated in the national Slavery Memorial Year in many different ways. What have we learned…

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

In the course of over four centuries the book collections have been greatly enlarged thanks to the bequests and grants or the purchases from the propriety of scholars or private collectors. Sometimes it concerned collections with thousands of early printed books, such as the purchase of the library…

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in English language and culture.

Subject librarians and Medical Information specialists employ general criteria when evaluating titles to be added or removed from the collections, some criteria having greater or lesser importance depending on subject area.

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

Our list of commonly used tools facilitate your work and research online.

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.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Italian Language and Culture

All University staff involved or interested in research data management are invited to join Leiden University Research Data Management Community.

Under agreement with the Dutch National Archives (2011), all static archives created by Leiden University are kept as a loan in the University Library. In this way, users can study the history of the university and library in conjunction with other relevant archives, collections and items.

During the award ceremony of the Christiaan Huygens Prize on 16 October, mathematician Rosa Schwarz received an honourable mention. Schwarz, former PhD candidate of the Mathematical Institute, received the mention for her dissertation ‘Logarithmic approach to the double ramification cycle’.

Facility, Library

Library

Jurist Gineke Wiggers wants to predict the expected impact of legal articles. Carel Stolker, Rector of the University and, like Wiggers, a legal specialist, is enthusiastic about the research. ‘A big data project like this will help us establish the effect of our work on society.’

Leiden Professor of Maths Frans van Schooten Jnr. (1615-1660) and his wife Margrieta were painted by Rembrandt. This is the claim made by mathematician and art historian Johan Zwakenberg in his recently published article in the 2018 Leiden Yearbook. Leiden art historians are not completely convinced…

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…

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), The Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU), The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and information and analytics business Elsevier have reached a framework agreement.

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…

The Dutch universities are conducting a joint campaign to promote open access: free access to academic and scientific publications. Many Leiden researchers support open access. Given that it involves a shift in the financing from the reader to the author, they point out the need for effective agreements…

Two Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) have been placed in front of the University Library in memory of the Jewish Cosman family. At the time of the Second World War, they lived in one of the houses where the library is now located.

The year 2023 saw the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Wagner Group rebellion and wildfires and floods as all the weather records were smashed. Our most-read stories were about the climate crisis and the elections: here’s the list.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Ancient Near East Studies. Last update: October 2020

What is writing? And what looks like writing, but isn’t? The Pseudo or Don’t pop-up exhibition explores the boundaries of scripts. The exhibition will run at Oude UB from 9 to 26 October.

Erik de Maaker and Radhika Gupta received a Seed Grant to initiate research on how heritage has been and can be mobilised to address climate change governance in Himalayan Asia. This project will address a significant knowledge gap on the potentials and pitfalls of climate governance, with an initial…

Library

Library, Research

This subject guide is a work in progress, aimed to provide access to relevant academic works and online resources on Palestine and Israel, as well as, documentaries, films, and literature to familiarize yourself with the complexities of the conflict.

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…

The domain of the post-medieval manuscripts and private archives covers the period from about 1550 to the present. A clear distinction with the medieval manuscripts, however, is difficult to make. There are many undated manuscripts and it is often difficult to date them even within a decade or a quarter…

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

In this FAQ we try to answer a selection of the most important questions on research data management that we compiled over the last 5 years.