Twenty-two of the 150 newly elected members of the Dutch House of Representatives studied at Leiden University or did their PhD research here. But who are they and which degrees are most popular?

The Lingling Wiyadharma Fellowship program offers the opportunity to three scholars to spend up to three months conducting research using the Southeast Asian and particularly the Indonesian special collections at Leiden University Libraries. The Lingling Wiyadharma Fellowship was made possible by Mr…

Ornately decorated head pieces and jewellery, images of imposing mosques and photos of local people. The 'Splendours of the Silk Roads' exhibition depicts life and different cultures along this important trade route.

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.

We celebrate Leids Ontzet, the Relief of Leiden, on Monday 3 October. This means that all University buildings in Leiden will be closed. The University buildings on Campus The Hague will be open, but there will be no classes.

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…

Education, Library, Research

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.

Since the UBL introduced a new and improved service for requesting course reserves last summer, many lecturers have used the new service. Today, the UBL processed the hundredth application of a course reserve for Casper de Jonge, university lecturer in Greek Language and Culture at the Faculty of Humanities,…

The Centre for Digital Scholarship of Leiden University Libraries Leiden collaborates with Leiden researchers, faculties, national and international colleagues and centres of expertise to facilitate and support Digital Scholarship – data management, Open Access and answering research queries – using…

Last month, the UBL announced that it will deselect an extensive collection of foreign dissertations. We are happy to report now that The Internet Archive will be taking over this collection.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has donated over 3000 historic photographs and prints on the Dutch East Indies, China, Japan, Singapore and Suriname to Wikimedia Commons, the image database of Wikipedia.

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

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.

Lawyer, economist, politician and women’s rights activist Lizzy van Dorp is the 100th entry in our Top 450. Who or what is your favourite?

The Surinamese-Dutch language, Parbo Beer and, of course, football. The ‘Dear Aunt Olga’ (‘Lieve tante Olga’) exhibition focuses on the shared Surinamese-Dutch culture. Full of cheer and with life experience to spare, ‘icon’ Aunt Olga (95) leads visitors through a shared history and does not shy away…

Thanks to the financial support of our friends foundation (Stichting Vrienden van de Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden) Leiden University Libraries was able to purchase a very early topographic map of southeast Sumatra.

As of 1 April 2025, Lodewijk Govaerts will be standing down from the Board of Governors due to other commitments that will demand a significant part of his time and attention within the foreseeable future. Govaerts does not want this to affect his ability to fulfil his role on the Board of Governors…

Ludo Waltman, professor of Quantitative Science Studies at Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), has been awarded the Derek de Solla Price Medal.

Hundreds of students and staff from Leiden University gave a ‘whistle concert’ on 11 December against the planned cuts to higher education. Similar protests were held in other student cities on the same day.

Last July, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University's Executive Board, opened the new front office of the Leiden University office in Jakarta. The office - located on the grounds of the Dutch embassy - has a dual role. Firstly, it…

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.

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…

Leiden University Libraries revives Imperial Prague in Leiden with the exhibition Prague around 1600: Art and science at the court of Rudolf II. The exhibition can be seen from the 29th of September 2016 to the 10th of January 2017, in the exhibition hall of the Leiden University Library at the Witte…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire four remarkable medical manuscripts partly thanks to support from the Friends of Leiden University Libraries, the Pieter van Foreest Stichting and the Van de Sande Fonds. All four are largely written in Dutch and can be dated between 1595 and…

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.

Research on quantum computers and Islamic charities: two Leiden researchers have received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council.

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’s President of the Executive Board, Professor Annetje Ottow, has been reappointed for a second term by the Board of Governors.

The IFLA-Section Rare Books and Special Collections committee and the Indigenous Matters Section, in collaboration with Leiden University Libraries (UBL) organize a satellite conference in Leiden – Friday August 18th and Saturday August 19th – prior to the IFLA World Library and Information Congress…

Library

Library, Research

In its thematic programme ‘Oppression and Freedom’, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) explores views on identity, relations and the interaction between individuals and groups in the past. The programme features several exhibitions, workshops and lectures on the subject of oppression and freedom. In…

Japan museum SieboldHuis has a new showcase in its panorama room, in which maps from the Siebold-collection of Leiden University Libraries are exhibited.

Wat zie jij als je verderkijkt? Hoe ziet studeren aan de Universiteit Leiden in 2075 eruit? We nodigen je uit om mee te doen met Verderkijkers.

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.

The exhibition ‘Sanskrit – Across Asia and Beyond’ tells the story of Sanskrit’s more than 3,000-year-long existence. It displays manuscripts and objects from Leiden University Library, complemented with objects from the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. The exhibition runs from May 18 to August…

Try to resolve the nitrogen problem, go on a regeneration journey or take part in psychological research: discover this and more at the new and improved 3 October University, ‘WetenschapsWarenMarkt’.

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…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) signed the manifesto of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network (NDE) this November, during Digital Heritage Month, thereby joining the network. The manifesto calls on archives, libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions to make their digital collections more visible,…

From March 1, Alenka Prinčič will be the new Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship (CDS) at Leiden University Libraries. Her expertise in the areas of Research Support, Research Infrastructures and Open Publishing as well as her longstanding experience as a manager are excellent starting points…

Ever since its foundation, Leiden University has turned its gaze outwards to other cultures, languages and forms of academic practice. It is only natural, therefore, that we as a university have four institutes abroad: the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW)…

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

Would you like to have your monograph published Open Access? This is becoming ever so attractive. Authors and publishers are increasingly discovering that online publication stimulates higher sales numbers of paper books.

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

Check whether you may incorporate journal articles in readers (via ReaderOnline) or place these articles on Brightspace, without having to pay costs via the Easy Access Agreement (also referred to as Reader Agreement).

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…

Library, Organisation, Research

The exhibition W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp en de Nieuwe Kunst rond 1900 will be on display in Leiden University Libraries in the period 21 January-17 May 2016.

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…