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 submission deadline for applications to Leiden University Libraries (UBL) Scaliger Institute fellowship programmes has been set for 1 February 2026. The Scaliger Institute, the special collections research centre of the UBL, supports scholars in any field of study and from anywhere in the world…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) recently digitized circa 150 Yemeni manuscripts and has made them freely available for research and education. The manuscripts, dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, were digitized as part of the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition project. Yemen has been marked…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL), the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) and the Nederlands Fotogenootschap would like to invite you for the symposium ‘Holy Land’ and Modernity: the Frank Scholten Collection in Context’ and hands-on viewing of Frank Scholten photographs and albums on Monday…

As of April 1, 2021, Dr. Saskia Gieling will be the new managing publisher of Leiden University Press (LUP), the academic press of Leiden University. Gieling brings a wealth of experience in scholarly publishing to her new position. She succeeds Anniek Meinders who has led LUP as managing publisher…

The airspace had almost closed last year as Leiden students and staff rushed to leave the Netherlands Institute Morocco (NIMAR). How is this Leiden institute in Rabat doing over a year later? ‘Luckily we’d done a crisis exercise a few months before. Everyone managed leave the country in time.’

Lecture, Film Screening

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture, Studium Generale

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…

UNESCO has recognized a large collection of handwritten letters and the archive of Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904) as documentary world heritage. Kartini opposed gender inequality in feudal Javanese society, including forced marriages, polygamy and lack of education for women.

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.

With support of several companies, including Brill Publishers, Elsevier and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guest per year to consult and examine material in the Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received…

UNESCO has recognized an international set of fifteen manuscripts about Ferdinand Magellan's first circumnavigation of the globe and the three Hikayat Aceh manuscripts as World Heritage. The manuscripts are inscribed in the global UNESCO Memory of the World Register. This list contains documentary heritage…

From Persia and Arabia to North Africa: as early as the nineteenth century, there were Dutch people who used the camera themselves in various regions of the Middle East.

The people behind the Leiden University Libraries aim to maintain the level of their services to clients as much as possible. They are making thankful use of internet, but not everything can be put online.

Summer School

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Ancient Near East Studies. Last update: October 2020