Relocation Digital Collections

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

To use library facilities and services, you need a valid and activated LU-Card.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) owns over 5 million paper materials. Loanable items can be picked up and returned at the UBL library location of your choice.

Leiden University alumni and PhD graduates can continue to use library facilities free of charge.

Visiting address Van Steenis Building Einsteinweg 2 2333 CC Leiden For any book locker issues, please call the University Library (UB): 071-5272813 (+31-71-5272813)

Museums, libraries and similar institutions can request materials for exhibitions from the Special Collections.

Visiting address Postal address Kamerlingh Onnes Building (KOG) Steenschuur 25 2311 ES Leiden Tel: +31 71 527 7515 Law Library Postbus 9520 2300 RA Leiden

Visiting address Postal address Gorlaeus Building Einsteinweg 55 2333 CC Leiden +31 71 527 43 66 / 43 67 Science Library P.O. Box 9502 2300 RA Leiden

Workshop

Overview of databases and reference works for research in Archaeology.

Visiting address Postal address Agora Building Wassenaarseweg 52 2333 AK Leiden Tel: +31 71 527 39 75 Social and Behavioural Sciences Library P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden

Visiting address Postal address Turfmarkt 99 2511 DP Den Haag +31 70 8009305 +31 71 5278705 Wijnhaven Library Postbus 13228 2501 EE Den Haag

The African Library is located on the ground floor of the new Herta Mohr Building at Witte Singel.

Scanners, copiers and printers are available at all of our library locations.

Leiden University students, staff and (dual) PhDs can use the libraries' databases, e-books and e-journals both on-campus and off-campus.

Visiting address Postal address Witte Singel 27 2311 BG Leiden 071 - 5272814 (General) 071 - 5272857 (Special Collections) Postbus 9501 2300 RA Leiden Courier services Witte Singel 27 2311 BG Leiden Goods deliveries Maliebaan 30 2311 CC Leiden

Workshop

Study support

Workshop

The Middle Eastern Library is located on the ground floor of the new Herta Mohr Building at Witte Singel.

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.

Workshop

A personal library account and LU-Card is needed to enter the libraries and use on-site facilities.

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

Old maps, beautifully coloured drawings, early photographs, rare books, and even a genuine love letter. Leiden University Libraries (UBL) holds an important and diverse Japan collection. From January through December 2026, we will organize various public activities around the Japan collections.

If an item is not available at Leiden University Libraries (UBL), you can try and obtain it directly from another library, request it using ILL services, or suggest items for purchase.

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.

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…

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…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has received a donation from Dr. Freerk Heule to digitise and publish an internationally unique collection of unofficial (minjian) poetry journals from China. These poetry journals are produced outside the official infrastructure for literature in China for literature…

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.

We are very pleased to announce the agreement between the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) and John Wiley and Sons, Inc. on unlimited open access publication of Dutch academic articles combined with expanded subscription access to high-quality research.

Education, Library, Research

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.

Read all about the most important functionalities of Zotero.

Every year on 26 November Leiden University commemorates the protest speech given by Professor Cleveringa against the Nazis. At least 663 students, staff and alumni of the University lost their lives during the Second World War, yet little was known about these victims. PhD candidate Adriënne Baars…

Without academic freedom, we might not have antibiotics, nor a deep understanding of human behaviour. Literary criticism, climate models, and ecological restoration would be severely limited; just like ethical reflection on artificial intelligence, justice, trauma, parenting, faith and hope. All these…

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.

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…

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

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has digitized more than a thousand individual manuscripts and several complete archives from the post-medieval western manuscript and archives collection and made them available online through Digital Collections. With this, some of the most important archives and masterpieces…

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.

Spatial technology such as virtual reality can help patients who have difficulty with spatial cognition, for instance if they keep on losing their way. In her inaugural lecture, neuropsychologist Ineke van der Ham will talk about the importance of avatars, the patient experience and room for innovat…

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…

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…

Leiden University’s Rector Magnificus, Professor Hester Bijl, has been reappointed for a second term by the Board of Governors.

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.

Northern Yemen; a highland region often in the news as the center of the Houthi regime, has a political, social, and intellectual history spanning more than a millennium. This exhibition showcases some of the findings of the Early Modern State Development in Yemen project, based at Leiden University,…