Contemporary Printed Books

The collection

KBR’s main collection of modern printed works contains the publications printed after 1800: a total of five million documents stored in 150 kilometres of stacks. The books from the collection can be consulted in the General Reading Room. Rare books printed after 1800 are kept at the Rare Books department.

Collection holdings

The contemporary printed books collection consists of two parts:

  • The most important collection of Belgian publications, journals and magazines in the country, which, since 1966, includes the collections from the Legal Deposit.
  • A collection of monographs, series and periodicals published abroad. Since 2001, the main focus of this collection is the humanities.

The collection is divided into different sub collections.

Search the catalogue

How to consult books

Online
  • You can consult digitised documents online via Belgica.
  • For full-text searches in our digitised journals and periodicals, please use BelgicaPeriodicals.
In the reading rooms

The books from this collection have to be consulted in the General Reading Room.

How does it work?

Exhibitions

The Reading Room hosts small exhibitions throughout the year, featuring printed works from the collection. These exhibitions can be viewed at the entrance to the General Reading Room. You do not need a reader’s card to visit them.

Contact
Contact the department