History

1425 - The university is founded.

1438/40 - A library is started in the Artes Faculty. It is the first library within the university, and it functions as a central library for the whole university as well. In the 15th and 16th centuries there are not only the various college libraries which professors and students can consult, but also the ample libraries of abbeys and monasteries in and near Leuven.

1636 - A Central Library is established in University Hall. Valerius Andreas, a Hebrew scholar, is made the first librarian. Having published Bibliotheca Belgica in 1623, he is also known as a bibliographer.

1723/31 - A new wing is added to University Hall, and in it the library is given a large, handsomely decorated room on the first floor. This has come about through the combined efforts of the librarian, Gaspar Magermans, a donor, the learned Canon Domien Snellaerts of Ghent, and the Rector, Hendrik Jozef Rega. In 1736 the library contains more than 8,000 volumes.

1772 - Jan Frans van de Velde is appointed librarian, and he immediately starts reorganizing the library's administration. He begins a detailed systematic catalogue and implements a vigorous purchasing policy which increases the number of books from 20,000 to 40,000 within ten years.

1797 - The university is abolished by the Republic of France. At this time the library has in its possession about 50,000 volumes. The City of Leuven requisitions the library, and finally reopens it as a municipal library in 1806.

1817 - Having served as a municipal library for some years, the library returns to its previous function as part of the State University of Leuven.

1835 - When the State University is abolished, the library once again becomes City property. The City, however, promptly makes the library over to the Catholic University which had been founded in Mechelen (Malines) in 1834 and which is transferred to Leuven in the present year.

1846/1900 - The library possesses an estimated 60,000 books and 300 manuscripts at the time when Jean-Baptiste Malou, later to become Bishop of Bruges, is librarian (1839-1848). In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the library benefits from the increasing attention it receives, and by 1900, at the beginning Joseph de Ras' librarianship (1899-1914) the holdings have grown to about 150,000 volumes.

1914 - On the night of 25th to 26th August, German troops burn down not only a large part of the city, but the University Hall too, including the library and its newly renovated storage facility. Almost 1,000 manuscripts, 800 incunabula and the entire holdings of about 300,000 volumes perish in the flames.

1918 - The international committee, l'Ouvre internationale pour la reconstitution de l'Université de Louvain, is installed in Le Havre. Since 1914 it has been coordinating the activities of various countries' committees for the relief of Leuven.

1921 - The first stone of a new library building is laid on what is today Mgr. Ladeuze Square. The American architect, Whitney Warren, has designed the building and supervises its construction, which has been made possible by the generosity of the United States.

1928 - On the Fourth of July, Independence Day, the new library is inaugurated. There are now 750,000 volumes, half of which have come from donations from home and abroad, and half purchased with funds from German reparations payments.

1940 - On 16th-17th May the library is once again totally destroyed by fire during military operations. About 900,000 volumes are lost, and the library will not be fully reopened until 1951.

1961 - Mgr. E. van Cauwenbergh, who was appointed librarian in 1919, and who had to reconstruct the library twice, retires. When he leaves, the library is in possession of a million volumes.

1968 - Two years after the establishment of two separate language-based divisions within the university, one Dutch-speaking and one French-speaking, two completely autonomous universities are brought into being by the legislation of 19 November 1968.

1971/79 - After the university was split in two, the library collections were also divided, and for a time two University Libraries have their seat in the library building on Mgr. Ladeuze Square: that of K.U.Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and that of UCL (l'Université Catholique de Louvain). The latter gradually moves out of Leuven. The libraries of K.U.Leuven's faculties and departments expand rapidly.

1971 - The campus which was established in the city of Kortrijk (Courtrai) in 1965, now acquires a permanent home for its library in the Humanities and Law building.

1974 - The scattered libraries of the Humanities Faculty move into the new faculty building at the beginning of the academic year, thereby ending their diaspora. On 16th October the new library of the Faculty of Theology is inaugurated, and it is hailed as 'the university community's statement of faith'.

1977 - A computerized system known as LIBIS is installed so that one common on-line catalogue can be created for the various university divisions, and to further communications among the many subsidiary library units.

1980 - In June the academic governing body approves a new library policy whose goal is decentralization in combination with effective integration.

1989 - The LIBIS computerization service (which has thus far been a sub-division of the Central Library, serving the K.U.Leuven library system), has come to serve nine other institutions as well. It is now given its own administration and the LIBIS network gets a new structural policy.

1994 - On 3rd June, with the opening of the new Bio-Medical Library at the Gasthuisberg hospital and teaching facility, all the separate collections of the Faculty of Medicine are now combined. On 4th July the new library of Economic and Applied Economic Sciences is opened. It is named after the emeritus Prof. Bob Vanes, and is situated in the faculty buildings known as de Hoge Heuvel (the High Hill).

See also: Central library - an historical survey
See also: Tabularium - geschiedenis van de collecties