Catholic University of Leuven

Library

The ruins of the library of the Catholic University of Leuven after the library was burned by the German army in 1914.

The holdings of the modern Catholic University of Leuven date back to 1834. Its main collections were held in a building on Naamsestraat dating back to the 17th century. It should be noted that it was only the collections of the university since its refounding that were lost. The manuscripts and most valuable works of the pre-revolutionary Old University, were transported^[6] to the National Library in Paris, while the bulk of the holdings (at least officially) was transferred to the Central School of Brussels, the official legal successor of the Old University of Leuven. The library of the Central School of Brussels had about 80,000 volumes, which then became part of the library of Brussels, and then the future Royal Library of Belgium where they are still found. The extensive archives of the Old University are now part of the National Archives of Belgium.

The library building designed by Whitney Warren and built from 1921-1928, now the KUL's central library.

Following the destruction of the library, a new library building was constructed on Ladeuzeplein. It was designed by the American architect Whitney Warren in a neo-Flemish-Renaissance style, and built between 1921 and 1928. Its monumental size is a reflection of the Allied victory against Germany, and it is one of the largest university buildings in the city. The library's collections were rebuilt with donations from all around the world, outraged by the barbaric act which it had suffered. In 1940, during the second German invasion of Leuven, the building largely burnt down, including its 900,000 manuscripts and books. The blaze is thought to have started in an exchange of fire between the two armies, rather than a deliberate act. The building was rebuilt after the war in accordance with Warren's design.

The library's collections were again restored after the war, and by the fission in 1968 had approximately four million books. The split of the university into separate French-language and Dutch-language institutions in 1968 entailed a division of the central library holdings. This was done on the basis of alternate shelfmarks (except in cases where a work clearly belonged to one section or the other, e.g. was written by a member of faculty or bequeathed by an alumnus whose linguistic allegiance was clear). This gave rise to the factoid that encyclopedias and runs of periodicals were divided by volume between the two universities, but actually such series bear single shelfmarks.

The building on Ladeuzeplein is now the central library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.