Leiden University Libraries is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave direction to the development and spread of knowledge during the Enlightenment. This was due particularly to the simultaneous presence of a unique collection of exceptional sources and scholars. Holdings include approximately 5,200,000 volumes, 1,000,000 e-books, 70,000 e-journals, 2,000 current paper journals, 60,000 Oriental and Western manuscripts, 500,000 letters, 100,000 maps, 100,000 prints, 12,000 drawings and 300,000 photographs. The library manages the largest collections worldwide on Indonesia and the Caribbean. Furthermore, Leiden University Libraries is the only heritage organization in The Netherlands with three registrations of documents in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. "Est hic magna commoditas bibliothecae ut studiosi possint studere" —Josephus Justus Scaliger "The greatest advantage of the library is that those who want to study, can study." History The 16th-century Dutch Revolt against the Habsburgs created a new country with a new religion. Soon, the need for a seat of higher learning was felt and in 1575 Leiden University was founded with the spoils from a confiscated Catholic monastery nearby. At the time the university was founded, it was immediately determined that a library in the vicinity of lecture halls was an absolute necessity. The library's first book was the Polyglot Bible, printed by Christoffel Plantijn, a gift of William of Orange to the library in 1575. The presentation of this book is regarded as the base on which the library is built (fundamentum locans futurae aliquando bibliothecae). The library became operational in the vault of the current Academy building at Rapenburg on 31 October 1587. In 1595 the Nomenclator appeared, the first catalogue of Leiden University Libraries as well as the first printed catalogue of an institutional library in the world. The publication of the catalogue coincided with the opening of the new library on the upper floor of the Faliede Bagijnkerk (now Rapenburg 70) next to the Theatrum Anatomicum. In 1864 the copy for the complete alphabetical catalogue of the library in Leiden from 1575 to 1860 was finished; it was never to appear in print. Readers were able to consult alphabetical and systematic registers of the Leiden library in the form of bound catalogue cards, known as Leidse boekjes. This remained the cataloguing system for the