Lifelike gods, provisional professors and the city militia with weapons a clanking. Leiden put on a colourful procession and drummed up hundreds of citizens to celebrate the foundation of the first university of the Republic of the Netherlands on 8 February 1575. 'It wasn't a party just for the sake…

Leiden University is celebrating its 450th anniversary in 2025 with a feast for the eyes, ears and spirit. The anniversary year opens with an extra special Dies Natalis on 7 February. Highlights includes an alumni festival, three exhibitions and a canal concert.

The core business of the UBL is to support research and education by making information available and accessible in a sustainable and open manner. In addition, the UBL also has a social, cultural and international role, partly because of the heritage it manages. To this end, we offer a digital and physical…

During the year 2021 and 2022 Leiden University Libraries illuminated the rich past of its university and its students by organising the thematic programme "University and Student life". Several online exhibitions, boekensalons and public lectures were organised around this theme, especially for the…

The number of historical and contemporary photographs of Leiden University approaches a half million.

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

Kiem-project Japanese Medical Histories

Systematically collecting, organising and citing your literature can be an overwhelming and time consuming process. A reference manager, like EndNote, Mendeley or Zotero, can help you with that.

The Friends of Leiden University Libraries Foudation (Stichting Vrienden van de Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden) is an active society that gladly supports the library. The Foundation contributes to purchases of special works and collections and regularly organises tours, lectures and other activities…

Leiden is a knowledge hub, unique in its kind in the Netherlands, for academics, professionals, students and all other people who are specialized or interested in photography. The city and university offer:

Leiden University has adopted its first Strategic Publication Framework for publishing the works of its researchers. The framework has been prepared by the Open Scientific Publishing think tank in the Academia in Motion program and has gone through extensive consultation in the faculties. On 11 November…

Freedom is not something we can take for granted. In its thematic programme ‘Oppression and Freedom’, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has explored views on identity, relations and the interaction between individuals and groups in the past. The programme included several (online) exhibitions, workshops…

UBL's collection exists to a large extent thanks to donations and financial support from private donors and funds.

Leiden University owns an extensive collection of papyri. The Papyrological Institute is proprietor of most of this collection. A smaller amount of Papyri is part of the ULL collection. Apart from original papyri the Papyrological Institute offers an extensive collection of handbooks and secondary studies…

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.

The Southeast Asian Special Collections contain text and audiovisual materials pertaining to the languages, histories, philosophies, religions, literatures, and (material) art of the region. The focus lies on the Malay world, in particular on the Nederlands-Indies/Indonesia. Apart from books and periodicals…

The UBL develop collections which support the needs of faculty and students of the University.

Address Academic Historical Museum Academy Building Rapenburg 73 2311 GJ Leiden

Copyright is designed to protect you as the author of your work (moral rights) and to encourage the distribution of your work (exploitation rights).

Open Access means making your research public via a publisher or on a platform, so that its contents are freely available online. The CDS' Open Access Team helps authors navigating the OA landscape.

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

Explanation and background of Dutch copyright

Do you have books, manuscripts, and other materials and are considering donating them to UBL? If so, please get in touch with us.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Biology

The Asian Library holds the largest collection on Indonesia worldwide, and some of the foremost collections on South and Southeast Asia, China, Japan and Korea.

The South Asian and Tibetan special collections provide material pertaining to the languages, histories, philosophies, art and material cultures of the region. The focus lies on Sanskrit, Tibetan, Lepcha, and Buddhism, but the collections also hold rich visual material for educational and academic purposes…

The archives created by Leiden University and the private archives of Leiden professors are an invaluable source for the history of the university and its functioning. The main sources have been edited (nearly always in Dutch). In addition, several studies have been published, describing the development…

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

The Bibliotheca Thysiana Fellowship keeps alive the memory of the young lawyer and book collector and bibliophile Joannes Thysius (1622-1653).

You are a PhD candidate and the completion of your dissertation is approaching. What to do next?