Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has made 45,000 digitised daguerreotypes, autochrome plates, photo prints, albums, cameras and other objects from its photography collections available through Digital Collections. This means that parts of the oldest photo collection in the Netherlands are now digitally…

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah. The Swedish Academy praises Gurnah's "uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents". The works in the reading…

A new memorial stone on the facade of a student house in the Hugo de Grootstraat is a reminder of the dozens of Indonesian students who studied in Leiden before and during the Second World War. Some of them were active in the Resistance, which cost a number of them their lives.

The law and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications need to be better aligned to ensure our personal data and privacy are protected. PhD candidate Andreas Häuselmann can see opportunities with AI, but dangers if this does not happen.

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

More people seeking asylum, overcrowded asylum accommodation and asylum procedures that take years because of a lack of capacity. The current government wants to declare an asylum crisis but what is that exactly and can they just do that?

‘What if we switch off all the lights one evening? That idea crossed my mind from time to time. And when I mentioned it to a taxi driver one day, he said: “Oh, you mean: lights out, stars on!” That’s not completely true, of course, because the stars are always on, but his phrase summed up the idea n…

Who can pitch a book so well that everyone wants to read it? These are the winners of the 2025 Alternative Reading List Awards.

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.

From Soledad Acosta de Samper and Albalucía Angel to Hazel Robinson Abrahams and Amalialú Posso Figueroa. During the Symposium & Workshop Experience and Voice: Library of Colombian Women Writers, we focus on books written by Colombian women writers from different historical periods. The symposium and…

Thousands of first-year students and hundreds of mentors kicked off the EL CID on Monday morning. This year for the first time, the introduction week of Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences was also open for students of Regional Training Centre mboRijnland and the Leiden Instrument…

Senior lecturer Rick Honings has been appointed Scaliger professor with effect from 1 July 2020. In the coming years his focus will be on promoting teaching and research on the Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. Honings succeeds book historian Erik Kwakkel, who held this chair until…

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our region witnessed the comings and goings of various types of hominin. This depended on the temperature as ice ages alternated with warmer periods. In ‘De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen’ (‘The First Humans in the Low Countries’) Leiden archaeologists Yannick Raczynski-Henk…

In the 60s and 70s, Black Power groups were also active in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This is what PhD candidate Debby Esmeé de Vlugt has discovered.

Three enormous maps of China, created during the reign of three different emperors of the Qing dynasty, have now been made available in open access and are downloadable via Leiden University Libraries’ (UBL) Digital Collections. The rich maps are an early example of academic collaboration between the…

LUC historian Jacqueline Hylkema unmasks forgeries from the early modern Dutch Republic in the research project "Mapping the Fake Republic".

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) recently participated in the Pagode-Europeana-China project as an associated partner. As a result, almost two hundred items related to China from the UBL Special Collections are now available via the Europeana website. The UBL was the only library to participate in…

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

With a grant from the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund D//F, John Boy and members of the d12n research cluster will explore new ways critical technologists try to align their work with digital technology with the political goal of defending the public interest.

The 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to American poet Louise Glück (1942-). This means the Nobel committee passed by authors like Anne Carson, Jamaica Kincaid en Maryse Condé, many of whom were tipped by academics and literary critics as being strong contenders for the prize in 2020.…

Students and staff from Leiden University are protesting in The Hague on 25 November against the billions in cuts to higher education. ‘The cuts are a terrible idea and we want to show why’, says Claire Weeda from WOinActie. ‘Research and teaching are essential to society.’

The First Americans exhibition in the National Museum of Ethnology showcases the resilience and creativity of native Americans. Striking artworks, fashion and prints show that the past is never far away. Artist Jacob Meders was inspired by 16th-century prints from the Leiden University Library. The…

Over 160 years ago, the Hague-based photography pioneer and traveler Alexine Tinne (1835-1869) captured current South Sudan and its inhabitants on film. These photographs represent some of the earliest images taken in the heart of the African continent.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has made approximately 2300 old printed books and special editions available online through Digital Collections. With this, a small but important part of one of the oldest and most important collections of printed works in the Netherlands is now digitally available…

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.

On Thursday 21 November, Leiden University Libraries' (UBL) Centre for Digital Scholarship and the Leiden Centre for Digital Humanities organised a Symposium on Tools Criticism at the Leiden University Library. Visiting Scaliger Professor Ted Underwood, gave a Public Lecture on "The Humanities in an…

Rembrandt Year is concluding with a major exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal. There are still numerous other activities such as lectures, the University Rembrandt Route and the screening of a critical documentary.

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…

Spui Campus, Leiden University’s fourth location in The Hague, will soon open its doors. The former V&D department store’s transformation into a university campus is becoming more visible by the week. Removal vans will soon be driving back and forth to move all the furniture there in time. The first…

At the start of the new year, we celebrate the release of a new selection of collection items into the Public Domain. This year, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is making approximately eight hundred items freely downloadable via Digital Collections.

Han Meyer, Carola Hein, Paul van de Laar and Sabine Luning, argue that in the current moment of major crises these ship channels necessitate radical reconsideration.

Colonial art and artefacts were not necessarily looted. Pieter ter Keurs, Professor of Museums, Collections and Society, calls for more nuance in the debate on art and collectors’ items from a loaded past. Inaugural speech on 2 December.

Starting January 18, the online exhibition Images of the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949 can be viewed via the UBL website. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and Leiden University Libraries…

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

From research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Life cycle assessment (LCA) reveals the total environmental impact of products or production processes, and EU rules are going to make this even more important.

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…

Charlotte Poot (31) is co-founder and chair of Hospital Hero, an app that prepares children for a hospital visit. She studied and obtained her PhD at the LUMC.

Few people would associate the name Anton de Kom with Leiden. Yet the Surinamese freedom fighter is the subject of an exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal.

Alumni who live and work in Brussels met on 18 February at the annual Leiden Alumni in Brussels Event. As well as celebrating Leiden University’s 450th anniversary, they also looked at the challenges Europe faces.

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…

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…

Lifelike gods, provisional professors and the city militia with weapons a clanking. Leiden put on a colourful procession and drummed up hundreds of citizens to celebrate the foundation of the first university of the Republic of the Netherlands on 8 February 1575. 'It wasn't a party just for the sake…

The Pilgrims to America exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal inspires reflection. How far do you go in the quest for freedom? It focuses on the Pilgrims’ relationship with the University and which knowledge they took with them from Leiden.

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…

The family of the famous diplomat, sinologist and writer Robert van Gulik has donated his personal archive and part of his collection to Leiden University Libraries (UBL). The collection and archive provide insight into the life and work of Robert van Gulik, who became known to the general public for…

Comic books and graphic novels are more important than ever in the Leiden University curriculum. That is why Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is currently working on expansion of its collections in this field. Yasco Horsman, University Lecturer at LUCAS, explains why this expansion is necessary and…

On Thursday 2 December, Nadine Akkerman, Reader in early modern English literature will be a guest in the online book salon of Leiden University Libraries (UBL). Head Curator Garrelt Verhoeven will interview Akkerman about her book Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts. In her biography, Akkerman describes…

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.