Simple Search

The easiest way to search the catalogue is by typing one or more keywords into the search bar and clicking the Search button. 

The menu on the left of the search bar allows you to choose the collections you want to search. All Content is the default search option, searching (e)-books, (e)-journals, (digital) articles, audiovisual material and Special Collections materials. 

To search for (e-)books or articles from the UBL collections, or from one specific library location, select Leiden Collections. Leiden Collections contains all (e-)books and (e-)journals from our collections.

Select the Special Collections option to find materials from the UBL Special Collections, such as manuscripts, early printed books, prints, drawings, letters, archives, photos and maps.

Are you looking for materials that are used in a specific course? Set the menu to Course Reserves to find the books your lecturer added.

After executing your search, you can make use of the filters on the left side of the catalogue to refine your search results. 

Advanced Search

You can make use of the following tools when searching the catalogue:

• Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT) connect your search words together with AND, OR, and NOT to either narrow or broaden your set of results.
• Wildcards (‘*’ and ‘?’) substitute specific characters in your search term, broadening your search results. Examples: wom!n = woman, women, speciali?ation = specialisation, specialization.
• Double quotation marks (“…”) to search the catalogue for a phrase, such as "global warming"

Use Advanced Search to search commonly-used fields, combine search options, or limit your search by material type, language, or publication date. Advanced Search can be useful when you prefer not to work with boolean operators or if you want to use fewer filters. It is also convenient when you already have a specific item in mind, of which you know the exact title, author and/or date. 

Multiple versions

If there is more than one version of an item available, click See all versions to view the different access options.

Series - 'Check Holdings'

When a record has a Check holdings tag, you may be looking at a series. Click the record and look under details to see if the link for Individual volumes connected to this series shows. If it does, follow this link to find out about the individual volumes the library owns of the series. If this option does not show, please contact the library information desk.

Search tips

• Use Database Search to find subject-specific databases. More information can be found in the subject guide for databases.
• If you are looking to find physical items only, filter your search results using Refine my results. Look for the option Availability and choose Physical Items.
• The catalogue does not contain a large number of Dutch journal articles. To find articles in Dutch, have a look at the subject guide Searching Dutch Articles (only available in Dutch).

I can't find my resource!

It may happen that you cannot find a particular resource through New search in the catalogue. This is because not all resources to which you have access via the library are listed directly in the catalogue. In this case, try the following:

• Search for book or journal title. If you are looking for a specific chapter or (newspaper) article, we recommend searching for the title of the entire book or journal/newspaper. So search broader, rather than by by a specific section. 
• Search in databases and journals. Some resources within certain databases and journals are also not immediately available in the catalogue, for example, articles in the Nexis Uni database. If you cannot find a resource, search for it within the relevant databases/journals. 
• Use correct search terms and filters. Check that your search terms are not too specific and that you have not applied any unnecessary filters. For sources in non-Latin scripts, for example, you must take care to ensure that you convert the non-Latin characters to Latin script and check how to do so. 

In some cases, the library simply has no physical or digital access to the resource. In these cases, you can submit an acquisition request (for books) or an ILL request (for articles and other resources). 

Requesting physical materials

The majority of items in the UBL collections are placed in the depot. If the material is loanable, it can be requested via the catalogue by clicking the Request button. Loanable materials are stored both in the depots (Closed Stack) or on the open shelves, where you can take the book off the shelf yourself (Open Stack). 

For more information on requesting and borrowing, please consult our page on borrowing materials.

Loanable or not loanable?

For each item in the physical collections, it is specified whether or not the item is loanable. You can find this specification under Get It, when you’re logged in with your ULCN account. Loanable items have the specification Regular loan or Loanable. Under Get It, you'll also see whether the material is currently available. 

Items that are specified as being for library use only, for reference only or not loanable cannot be borrowed. If the item does not have a Request button, you can get it from the shelf and read it on the spot. Items that do feature a Request button always need to be requested; they can be read in the Special Collections reading room after having been made available by our staff.

Reading room materials

Part of the collection is located in the reading rooms. These items are not always loanable. These items will have a Locate button on their detail pages. Click the button to find where the item is shelved.

Online access displays items that may be available online. If the item has multiple entries, click an entry to display the item on a new page.

E-books

Most of the e-books the UBL offers access to can be found by searching the catalogue for a title and/or author. To refine your search to only show e-books, under Availability select Online Access, and under Resource type select (e-)books. For more information, please consult our subject guide on e-books. 

E-journals

Use Journal Search to find e-journals. Alternatively, perform a search, and under Resource Type, select Journals. To limit your search to e-journals, under Availability select Online Access.

To keep up with your favourite journals, you can use Browzine. After setting up an account, the app offers Leiden University staff and students access to most available e-journals.

Databases

Find available databases via Database Search in the catalogue. Please consult our subject guide for databases for more information about browsing databases.

No full text access?

By default, the catalogue only yields search results with full text access. However, if you enable the Extra Results Options > Include records without full access filter at the top-right corner of your search results, you will also find items that are not part of our collections. These have the specification No online access and only include the bibliographic information of these items. We recommend to not toggle on this filter. 

Another instance of when the No online access label might show, is when you have followed a GetIt@Leiden link from another website. GetIt@Leiden is a service that assists in finding out whether the UBL has access to the source or not; it does not guarantee access. When your search concerns an article, it can be useful to try and find the publication it was published in, to see if the paper edition may be part of our collections.

Is there no access possible to your item? The item may be available in other libraries. You can then request them via interlibrary loan.

When you’re signed into the catalogue with your ULCN account, you can:

• Use physical library services such as requesting, borrowing, and renewing materials.
• Save and organise catalogue items and search queries.

You can find all these functionalities in My Account. 

Remember to always sign out!
Please always make sure to sign out of the catalogue, especially at public computers, so as to keep your searches and personal data private.

My Loans

You can view your loan history after signing into the catalogue. Go to your account at the top right corner and select My Loans. By default, this will show your current loans. Change the menu to Loan history to view previous loans.

My Requests

My Requests shows you the items you requested, as well as the items that are ready for you. For more information, please consult our page about renewals and returns. 

Saved Items

You can save and organise catalogue items in your account. To add an item to your Saved items, select the bookmark icon on the right of your search result. To remove the item from your Saved items, click the bookmark icon again and select Remove this item. 

In order to keep saved items organised, you can use labels:  

• Go to Saved items in your account;
• Select one or more items;
• Select Add new labels at the top of the page;
• Select a label, or add a new label.

In the left corner you will find the option Filter by label. Here you can select one or more labels to view items from your list with only the selected label(s). 

Saved Searches

To save an entire search query, please select Save Search under Save Search or Export, directly underneath the search bar. Queries will be saved under Saved searches in your account.

The Save Search option also allows you to receive an email notification whenever a new query result is found for your saved search. You can switch these notifications on by going to your Saves searches, clicking on the three dots on the right, and selecting Set an alert for this search.

From October 2026 onwards, you can search for materials in the catalogue using natural language search. This is a function that makes use of genAI to transform your query (written in everyday language) into a structured format that the catalogue system can return results to.  

Why natural language search? This type of search can help you… 

• … find relevant sources, even if you don’t know what exact keywords to look for 
• … discover new keywords for future searches 
• … search different language materials 

Be aware that the AI does not understand your specific context. Furthermore, certain languages, ideas and concepts may be represented less in its trainings data. Therefore, always check the Generated Query and adjust your search manually if needed.

How to use natural language search?  

Getting started:  

1. Click on Natural Language Search next to the search bar. 
2. Type your query in plain language/free text into the search box and click on search to generate results. See below for example search queries. 

Understanding your search results: 

1. The results are based on keywords and filters that are extracted from your query.  
2. Check Generated Query and filters toggled on to see what advanced search the system has created from your natural language prompt.  

Editing your results: 

1. You can change the filters and Advanced Search query manually to edit and/or refine your results. 
2. Select Edit to reopen the natural language search box, to modify the scope and/or full query. 
3. Select Simple Search to close the natural language search and return to the standard keyword search. 

Using natural language search effectively 

Specify filters in your query 

There are certain filters you can specify in your query that the system will identify. This includes Title, Author, Resource Type and Language.  

For the full list, see the page of the developer Primo Ex Libris: Natural Language Search in the NDE UI 

Search in other languages 

Although the interface is in English, you can use the natural language search in two ways to request different language materials in their search results: 

1. Specify the language as part of the initial search term. For example, Find me history journals in French that are available online. In this case, the entire search query will be generated in the specified language, which you will find under ‘Generated Query’.  

2. Enter your search query in the required language. For example, Trouvez-moi des revues d'histoire disponibles en ligne. In this case, three of the search terms included in the generated search are in the language of the initial search, and three are in English. The English terms are added to increase the relevant search results, as many keywords in the catalogue are in English.  

Always check the Generated Query and your results to see if your prompt has been translated correctly. Moreover, there are UBL-specific rules while searching in non-Latin scripts in the catalogue that the natural language search does not take into account. This means you may not be able to find older foreign language books by only using natural language search. 

Example prompts

Check out the following example search queries with their Generated Queries: 

• Find me peer-reviewed papers about data justice in English published between 2020-2024 
• Keywords (output in English): data justice; algorithmic fairness; digital equity; information ethics; social justice technology; fair data practices.
• Filters:
  • Creation Date: 2020-2024 
  • Language: English 
  • Peer-reviewed Articles 

• Find me articles about mining in Bolivia in Spanish that are available online  
• Keywords (output in Spanish): minería; Bolivia; explotación minera; recursos minerales; extracción; minería en Bolivia. 
• Filters:  
  • Creation Date: 2020-2024 
  • Language: Spanish 
  • Resource Type: Articles 
  • Online Access 

• Zoek naar bronnen over het Leids Beleg gepubliceerd voor 1950  
• Keywords (output in Dutch and English): Leids Beleg; Beleg van Leiden; Leiden siege; Leiden belegering; Dutch revolt; Eighty Years’ War 
• Filters: 

  • Creation date: 0001-1949 

• Find me books about water irrigation that are physically held by the library 
• Keywords (output in English): water irrigation; irrigation systems; water management; agricultural irrigation; irrigation techniques; water distribution. 
• Filters:  
  • Resource Type: (e-)Books 

  • Physical Items 

Limitations 

• Be aware that even in natural language, the catalogue search system is still built on keywords. You should therefore still identify and include relevant keywords in your search.  
• For general limitations of genAI, please see the Subject Guide Getting Started with AI at Leiden University.  

The developer Primo Ex Libris is constantly updating the functionality of the natural language search. See the ‘Known Issues’ to see the current limitations of the system. 

What model does the catalogue use? The natural language search in the catalogue uses the ChatGPT 4.1Mini as a base model.