In 2020, Mr G.A. Biezeveld and Mrs E. Biezeveld-Dikshoorn donated their beautiful collection of 718 Dutch historical prints created by over 200 artists to the University Library Groningen (UB). The inventory of these prints was recently completed and the collection is now accessible to researchers, lecturers, students and other interested parties. The prints collection, which has been named Biezeveld - Van den Steenhoven, can be consulted at the UB Department of Special Collections.

On our blog Gauronica, Annelies Noordhof-Hoorn tells about het exciting foray into the sixteen boxes that appeared to sit in the Special Collections vault.

RUG-docenten Frank Harbers en Huub Wijfjes gebruikten boeken, kranten en pamfletten uit onze Bijzondere Collecties voor hun online collegereeks Media History. Het leverde twee interessante filmpjes op, waarover de studenten erg enthousiast waren.

Friday 20 November, in the Special Collections research room UG Library director Marjolein Nieboer was handed a beautiful gift by Mrs Dini Stokkentreeff of Delden. It concerned three editions of the bible, at one time bound togehter in one volume (a so-called convolute).

Three stunning works from the University of Groningen Library Special Collections are currently on display at exhibitions in Aduard and Groningen.

Today, Thursday 29 October, the UG celebrates 40 years of cooperation with the Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität in Oldenburg, Germany.

The Special Collections department made a virtual exhibition about 400 (!) years of Groningen and Oldenburg .

Bijzondere Collecties in het nieuws. Het Dagblad van het Noorden besteedde deze week ruim aandacht aan onze nieuwe expositie Verzamelwoede, een eeuw Nederlandse plaatjesalbums uit eigen collectie (1920-2020).

On our weblog Gauronica , about things from Groningen, that is to say: objects from the Special Collections in the University of Groningen Library, a new, richly illustrated article was published by UB staff member Wim Braakman .

Monday 19 October, in the Special Collections research room Huub Wijfjes and Frank Harbers shot a video for their online bachelor lecture Media Studies lecture. Among other subjects, they talked about the Index librorum prohibitorum (list of forbidden books).

In the University of Groningen Library City Centre, a colourful selection of albums for picture cards is now on show, published in the Netherlands over the last hundred years that have been added to collection of the University Library of Groningen.

• University of Groningen Library City Centre
• Display cabinet at Special Collections, stairwell 3rd floor
• and also in every display cabinet in the stairwell and coffee corners
• Thursday 8 October 2020 through Sunday 31 January 2021

Inventory Rhetoricians collection

This summer, the UB Groningen reached an important digital milestone: over 33,000 books (33,386) from the collection have been digitized and made available online. Some of these can be consulted via Google Books, and even more via Delpher. The digitization took place across the past three years as part of a collaborative project with the National Library.

New virtual exhibition: Maps of Meaning

Limited reopening of Special Collections Research room for UG staff and students

In these corona times, the UG is still closed for the most part but, as a first step, its laboratories have reopened. The Special Collections research room at the UB belongs to this category too. Is that strange? Not really, because the Special Collections department is the laboratory where you can research humanity.

During these times of crisis, most of us have become shut-ins. But history shows that we are far from the only ones to stay indoors for an extended period of time.
UB staff member Wim Braakman wrote an article for our weblog Gauronica about recluses through the centuries, from Simeon the Stylite through friar Hugo , who has been living as a recluse in Warfhuizen for the last 18 years.

Member of the board Hans Biemans visited the University of Groningen Library staff members still working behind the scenes in the UB City Centre. They see to it that returned books are taken in safely, and requested books are positioned in the Self service A section to be picked up by our users. Also, the research room of the Special Collections department is open again to UG staff and students.

The vault of the Special Collections department of the University of Groningen Library holds more than 70 posters with propaganda slogans from the Nazi period. These often richly illustrated posters were distributed in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation under the motto Slogan of the workling week.

New: frequently asked questions services UB