Leiden scholars study clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia. But what exactly does the cuneiform script say?

The collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) have been enriched with the Maktabat al-Yaman al-Amstirdāmīyah, or Amsterdam Yemen Library. This collection, which exists of about a thousand books, journals and maps, is the largest coherent Yemen collection in The Netherlands and was brought together…

Starting 1 November, the Walaeus Library, located in the Leiden University Medical Centre, is part of Leiden University Libraries (UBL).

A renewed agreement between VSNU and the publisher Taylor & Francis for 2016 and 2017 offers the opportunity for Leiden researchers to publish open access without additional costs in all hybrid journals published by Taylor & Francis and Routledge. We consider this to be an important step towards facilitating…

As of 1 May Gianne Derks is the new Scientific Director of the Mathematics Institute. Derks succeeds Hermen Jan Hupkes who temporarily assumed the role. Derks has been appointed for a period of four years.

On 28 October, Leiden University received the first Javanese Culture Prize from Universitas Sebelas Maret in Solo, Indonesia. The jury praised Leiden University’s extensive collection of Indonesian and Javanese manuscripts.

Library

Library

From study places to consulting collections and from a meeting with your faculty liaison to getting books after opening hours: the new Science Library offers it all. The library moved to a brand new location in the Gorlaeus building and will be open starting 15 April.

Academics regularly face threats, intimidation and abuse. The Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) therefore launched the WetenschapVeilig platform on 7 November 2022.

The webpage Diversity & Inclusion for the Faculty of Law is live. On this page, you will find everything about the faculty activities and plans in the field of diversity and inclusion.

The board of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) has agreed on June 27 on a plan for closer collaboration with Leiden University and the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO). The plan includes the launch of a NINO research institute with an annual budget of approximately 300.000 euro.

A national walkout will be staged on Monday 13 May. Leiden Scholars for Palestine has called on students and staff from Leiden University to meet at 11.00 at the Lipsius building in Leiden and the Wijnhaven building in The Hague.

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.

How did the mythical kings of ancient Persia live? In this podcast, we delve into the Shahnameh, also known as the Book of Kings.

NWO has set up a new Open Science Fund aiming to support researchers to develop, test and implement innovative ways of making research open, accessible, transparent and reusable, covering the whole range of Open Science.

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.

Researchers from eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, published a new book on EU data protection law.

Facility, Library

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…

As of 1 June 2020, NWO will make 500,000 euros a year available for the Open Access publication of books resulting from funded projects.

Every year, the DIKTI-Leiden Fellowship programme offers three senior (postdoc) researchers affiliated with a state or private university in Indonesia the opportunity to conduct three months of research in the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) Special Collections.

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,…

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 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 has become a member of OpenAIRE, a European non-profit e-infrastructure organisation that supports open science. Leiden University Libraries (UBL) submitted the application on behalf of the university.

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.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is delighted to announce that Dr Farouk El-Hosseny will join the teaching staff as Visiting Assistant Professor of International Law.

A large group of researchers from Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place from 25 to 28 June in Prague.

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…

The Air and Space Law (Advanced LL.M.) master’s programme at Leiden University is among ten ‘excellent master’s programmes’ at Dutch universities. This is according to ‘Keuzegids masters 2024’, a guide to master’s programmes in the Netherlands.

Over 200 people paid their first visit to the new Middle Eastern Library on a special open evening. As well as exploring the library, they got to see exhibitions, speed lectures and premieres about Leiden University’s Middle Eastern collections.

Leiden University Libraries has been elected to the Executive Committee of the IIIF Consortium. The term of office is two years starting from January 2022.