The opening of Leiden University's Asian Library

It houses important Chinese, Japanese, South and Southeast Asian collections, and the world's largest collection on Indonesia.

The library was inaugurated this week by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.

'It took several years of tremendous preparatory work,' said the head of the university library, Kurt De Belder, to create a large open stack collection of 4 kilometers of Asian materials at the University Library, an additional book depository with 38 km of shelf space allowing all of the Asian collections to be housed at the University Library, and ultimately creating an Asian Library on the library’s former roof garden.”

Situated on the third floor of Leiden University’s library building, the Asian Library has surrounding windows overlooking the city’s canal and a 16th century botanical garden. Its facilities include conference rooms and a film hall.

(Report by The Jakarta Post)