Custodians of TeXT

As a librarian for the greater part of my life, I am greatly devoted to text. Texts in all their forms and varieties, from manuscripts from the Middle Ages to the letters and notes of Jan Wolkers, from early printed incunabula to the books written or printed in a great variety of languages from all over the world, from finely printed private presses to chapbooks and ephemera, but also from the traditional codices to digital texts in all its forms, media and languages.

Since the groundbreaking Panizzi Lectures by Oxford professor D.F. McKenzie, published as Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (London, The British Library, 1986), the scope of research expanded from ‘the history of the book’ to ‘the history of texts’. The name of your department properly changed its name to Book and Digital Media Studies and even more significant, you chose TXT as the name of your annual publication.

The widening perspective also changed the soul of the library. In the digital era librarians are no longer only curators of books and manuscripts, but also the custodians of a digital library of texts in all its forms and formats. As carefully as we store and care for our collections of textual heritage, we also care for digital data and access to the worldwide web of knowledge. Still, the main carrier of the data and knowledge remains the same: its text!

Therefore, I welcome the theme of this jubilee issue, ‘Centuries of TeXT’, which reminds me of the rich history of our library. In just two years from now, in 2025, we will celebrate 450 years of Leiden University. From a librarian’s perspective, the theme of our celebration could well be ‘450 years of texts’. The history of the university is inseparable from the history of its library as an indispensable tool to accommodate research and education in all faculties.

Leiden University Libraries is proud to partner with the students of the MA Book and Digital Media Studies in the publication of the tenth issue of their yearbook, TXT X. From the beginning of this series members of the library’s staff have been involved in TXT, as is the case in this anniversary edition. I congratulate the staff of Book and Digital Media Studies and especially this year’s editorial committee on this achievement. I know that publishing a book is not a small feat. It takes quite an effort to go through the whole process of gathering submissions, reviewing, editing, designing, etcetera.

I wish Book and Digital Media Studies and TXT a bright and textual future and I do hope that the close ties between our library and the staff and students of BDMS, will even get closer. A flourishing academic field, devoted to text, is a necessary condition to educate and recruit the librarians and custodians of the future. 

Finally, speaking for myself, I am pleased that TXT is still published as a printed book, a book I can hold in my hand, with pages I can browse, with meaningful texts and images. As an eager reader I will take my own copy home and start reading immediately, as a librarian I will ensure that we will cherish this small book in our vaults, amidst an ocean of textual heritage.

Kurt De Belder
University Librarian
Director Leiden University Libraries &
Leiden University Press