Ghent University Library ( nl, Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent) is located in the city of

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. It serves the university community of students and scholarly researchers.

History

After

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when th ...

was founded in 1817, books confiscated by the state during the

French period In Northern European historiography, the term French period (french: Période française, german: Franzosenzeit, nl, Franse tijd) refers to the period between 1794 and 1815 during which most of Northern Europe was controlled by Republican or Napo ...

were given to the university. In 1942 the Book Tower (''

Boekentoren The Boekentoren (Dutch for ''Book Tower'') is a famous building located in Ghent, Belgium, designed by the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde. It is part of the Ghent University Library and currently houses 3 million books. The Boekentoren is di ...

'') was opened, located next to the

Blandijn The Blandijn, short for Blandijnberg, is a building complex of Ghent University in the Belgian city Ghent and directly adjacent to Boekentoren, the tower of the Ghent University Library. The Blandijn, named after the Blandijnberg hill it stands on ...

, which houses the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. Designed by

Henry van de Velde Henry Clemens van de Velde (; 3 April 1863 – 15 October 1957) was a Belgian painter, architect, interior designer, and art theorist. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, he is considered one of the founders of Art Nouveau in Belgium ...

, it has since been the chief architectural feature of the library. The library has evolved in recent years, focusing on decentralization and networking rather than a central facility. Some collections of books are to be found in the faculty libraries; but some books are conventionally gathered together in the University library.

Digitization

A range of electronic resources are available within the UGent network as part of a digital library. The Library has also joined with the

Google Books Library Project Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

in digitizing books to be made more widely accessible online.

External links

Library (in English)

Boekentoren Belvédère in 360°

The European Library
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Library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

Academic libraries in Belgium Towers in Belgium Buildings and structures in Ghent

History

Digitization

See also

External links