KB catalogue
Looking for a book, magazine, journal or newspaper and want to know whether the KB carries it? Curious about a particular author? Generally referred to as the Online Public Catalogue (OPC), the KB catalogue contains information on the over 4 million works in the KB collection. KB members can access them all and, in some cases, even borrow them.
What will you find in the catalogue?
The catalogue contains descriptions of all works in the KB collection. This involves a lot of information because it is the KB's mission to preserve for posterity everything ever published in the Netherlands, from books and newspapers to journals, magazines and old documents such as letters and atlases. The catalogue includes information on:
- almost 3 million books
- more than 160,000 magazines and journals
- 81,000 handwritten books from the Middle Ages
- more than 33,000 letters
- some 30,000 old maps of countries and cities
- links to 700,000 online books, newspapers, magazines and journals
We add new books, newspapers, magazines and journals to the catalogue every day. As part of this, we keep a record of the name of the work, who authored it, when it was published, how many pages it has, what it is about and how big it is.
Who is the catalogue for?
The catalogue is for anyone who wants to know which books, newspapers, journals and documents they can find in the KB. It's also a great resource for people looking for more information about these works. Want to know what a book is about, what year it was published or in which languages it was written? Or are you after the full bibliography of a Dutch author? The KB catalogue is a great place to start. It’s a valuable tool for students, scholars and anyone looking to find out more about a particular topic or author.
How to use the KB catalogue
Go to the main menu
Go to the menu at the top of this website and click on 'Catalogue'. Enter a query in the search bar, such as the name of an author or a topic. Press enter or click on 'Search' to open the catalogue.
View the results
Narrow down your search results by searching by title, author or publisher. Or change the order of results and sort by year of publication, for example.
Click on the title
Found what you were looking for? Click on the title to find all the information we have about that particular work.
Reserving an item
KB members can reserve and borrow some works. Click 'reserve' and enter your card number and password. If a digital version of the work exists online, you can often read it without a membership. In those cases, you can click the link on the book.
Loans
If you reserved a book, magazine or journal, go to borrower details to find out when it will be ready for you at the KB.
Search tips
- Next to your search results, you will find a list of hints and filters. The hints include several names and words related to your query. To start a new search, all you have to do is click the hints.
- 'Filters' contains a list of options to help narrow down your search results, such as a filter that shows online texts only.
- If you require a bit of assistance, click on 'help'. This will take you to a page with more information about searching the catalogue.