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Webinar with Q&A

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.

In September 2024, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) will dispose of a collection of dissertations from foreign universities published after 1850. This allows us to make room for new acquisitions.

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…

Explanation and background of Dutch copyright

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

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

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.

Do you use our Interlibrary Loan Service to obtain books, chapters and/or articles from another library? From 28 January we will be moving on to a new application system.

Leiden University teachers that have requested course reserves for students at Leiden University Libraries (UBL), or have made books non-lendable for educational purposes, now have four ways to offer these materials to students at home.

With its FestivOWL theme, Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) promises to be one big festival for new international students in Leiden.

Welcome to Leiden University Libraries (UBL).

Everyone working with research data will, at some point, come across the acronym of FAIR, which stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

Our collections contain many materials that are old, fragile, light-sensitive, maltreated in the past or much used and therefore tattered. Other items may be hundreds of years old and still be in sound condition. We aim to have all collections available as much as possible, while we also preserve them…

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…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has received considerable funding from the National Library of Israel (NLI) and the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS) for the digitisation of a collection of 166 Hebrew manuscripts. The digitised manuscripts will be made available to the public in the course…

Various University locations have extended their opening hours during the upcoming exam period to give you more chance to study. The cafés have also extended their opening hours.

Researchers of Leiden University (excl. LUMC) are collectively using the Leiden Repository to make their publications Open Access available. They have, thereby, shown 75% Open Access publication of peer-reviewed articles to be an attainable goal for the 2017 and 2018 years. This has greatly increased…

Over the centuries painters and photographers have depicted students at study in Leiden. An exhibition at the Hortus botanicus reveals the similarities and differences in 450 years of student life.

Library, Research

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

3 October University has become something of a tradition: a bit of science among the Leidens Ontzet celebrations. During the new and improved edition, the WetenschapsWarenMarkt (Science Market), visitors spoke to researchers about the nitrogen problem, making organs and the city’s connections with A…

Dick Schoof kan ook wel de buurman van de Haagse faculteit worden genoemd. Vooral vanuit zijn rol bij de NCTV werkte hij veel samen met de Universiteit Leiden en hielp hij onderwijs en onderzoek vooruit, vertelt hoogleraar Terrorisme en Contraterrorisme Edwin Bakker. ‘Voor een kritische vriend was altijd…

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…

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…

Presentations, city tours, themed cafés and information fairs − there was plenty to discover on the Bachelor’s Open Day last Saturday. Around 6,000 prospective students and 4,000 parents visited faculties in Leiden and The Hague to soak up the atmosphere and imagine how it would be to study at Leiden…

Two Leiden University science communication projects have been awarded a WECOM grant through the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). One project is a study of the history of the deaf community in the Netherlands and the other is of a condition that causes people to lose their way.

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.

They might not have had Twitter, but they did have brochures (pamphlets), the Roman Catholics and ‘modern’ Protestants between 1840 and 1870. In these, they launched a passionate attack on each other’s ideas. Ineke Smit has catalogued the brochures from the collection of the University Library and outlined…

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…

Portraits that gaze at you and have moving stories to tell: HEAR ME NOW says what usually remains unsaid.

The universities in the Netherlands and Oxford University Press (OUP) have been unable to able to reach a new agreement for access to academic journals.

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

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…

Books, manuscripts and images are of course made to be read and looked at, but they are also so much more. There is a world to discover in this new exhibition: hidden content, moving parts, pop-up images and much else besides. Touching Treasures by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) revolves around…

The latest scientific articles by the Rectores Magnifici of Dutch universities will soon be freely available online. They aim to set a good example to researchers in the Netherlands. Carel Stolker from Leiden University is one such Rector.

We are living in turbulent times. Various conflicts in other parts of the world at times give rise to feelings of anxiety, unrest and anger in our country too. We also see this happening in our academic community.

The universities in the Netherlands and Cambridge University Press (CUP) have recently concluded a three-year agreement guaranteeing 100% open access to academic journals. As of June 1, researchers at Dutch universities will be able to publish articles in CUP’s full open access journals via the so-called…

The collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) not only hold academic material, but also many novels, collections of poetry, non-fiction works and even cookbooks. Is your summer reading list still unfinished, take a look at the list below and borrow your book through the UBL catalogue.

Starting in September, 55,000 books from the Leiden University Libraries will be digitized. This marks Leiden University’s contribution to the successful partnership between the National Library of the Netherlands (KB) and Google.

The Dutch universities will give Open Access an extra boost from 2019 by starting a pilot titled ‘You share, we take care’ to make publications available after six months in collaboration with researchers.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Thousands of students and researchers from eight partner universities in the Netherlands and Flanders have been able to gain valuable experience in Egypt through the institute. Good reason for a celebrat…

In 2022, every euro in the Netherlands lost about 10% of its value, price increases comparable to the stagflation period of the 1970s. In the same year, the value of the Argentine peso halved, while prices in China only rose by 2%. How well do we understand the economic mechanisms behind inflation?…

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

You win the Leiden Teaching Prize and suddenly all eyes are on you. Three past recipients reflect on how this student-awarded prize has changed how they work and improved their teaching – and how they chose to spend the money.

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…

Egyptologist Marleen De Meyer has been appointed the new Director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC). Dr De Meyer has worked for the institute, which promotes Egyptian, Dutch and Flemish collaboration in the field of education and research, since 2016.

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…

The Centre for Digital Scholarship of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Leiden Centre for Digital Humanities would like to invite you to the symposium on Tools Criticism on Thursday 21 November, from 10.00-18.00. The symposium will be held in the Vossius room of the University Library at Witte…