There are several excellent options for teachers and researchers to engage students and other audiences with primary sources. Either by requesting items from the Special Collections for use during lectures or by integrating our educational resources into your lesson plans.

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.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for South and Southeast Asian Studies.

How should we address our colonial heritage? And how digital and accessible are our collections? Outgoing State Secretary Fleur Gräper spoke with researchers and heritage specialists about this on 25 January.

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…

This year the Scaliger Institute received a record number of applications from domestic and foreign submitters for a fellowship to consult and research material in the Special Collections of the University Libraries. With the financial support of a number of companies and private foundations, the UBL…

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.

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.

As a Friend, you contribute to the acquisition, digitisation and restoration of important objects.

Due to renovations and Whit Monday, the Special Collections Reading Room will be closed between 6 and 20 May. Only limited services will be available. For questions, please contact specialcollections@library.leidenuniv.nl.

Alumnus Anoma van der Veere did Japanese studies and talks in this interview about his studies in Leiden and his work as a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre and as Japanese correspondent in Tokyo.

Study support

Knowing where scientific information can be found and how to use it is of great importance for getting through university. In collaboration with teachers, UBL guides students in information literacy skills: from assessing information to searching in the Special Collections and citation management.

Korea specialist Koen De Ceuster has combined 1200 posters from North Korea in one database. He believes the posters are extremely valuable for researchers who want to make a more in-depth study of this closed country. The database will be launched on 15 June in Leiden.

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 Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an exceptional two-volume Miao album. The acquisition was made possible by the Rombouts Fund for Chinese collections. The extraordinarily well-preserved work contains 70 full-page paintings on silk, depicting non-Chinese peoples in the area…

Leiden University has library locations in Leiden and The Hague. Are you having trouble finding anything, or do you have a question? Our library staff is glad to help you. You can find them at the information desks, and around the library.

Leiden University Libraries hosts materials in hundreds of different languages, including many languages that are written in non-Latin scripts.

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.

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

2017 was the Leiden Asia Year. Leiden has had connections with Asia and built up extensive knowledge of the continent over many centuries. This Leiden-Asia link has been in the spotlight for the past year.

The main focus of the Islamic World Special Collections is on the Middle East and North Africa, with smaller holdings from Indonesia, the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia as far as Xinjiang, China.

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

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an extraordinary Chinese manuscript at auction in Hong Kong. It concerns an Imperial Edict (dated 1582) from the Ming dynasty period, at one time part of the former collection of well-known sinologist and author of detective-novels Robert van…

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for Research in Russian and Eurasian Studies