Special Collections
Special Collections offers a broad range of rare and old materials and publications. The collections include garden and landscape designs, nursery catalogues, aerial photographs, and academic heritage. A large part of the collection is digitally available. The main subjects in the collections are agriculture, horticulture, ornamental plants, botany, forestry, livestock farming, and land use. Please use the search box to find publications or click on one of the tiles for more information.
Books and journals
The main subjects in the collection of 45.000 books, manuscripts and journals are agriculture, horticulture, ornamental plants, botany, land use and garden and landscape architecture. Some of the most valuable items include herbals, botanical and horticultural books from the 17th, 18th and 19th century.
Garden and landscape
The garden design and landscape architecture collections from Special Collections cover the history of gardening and landscape developments in the Netherlands. Original garden designs on paper from important architects, such as Leonard Springer, the Zochers, the Copijns, Mien Ruys, John Bergmans and Hein Otto can be studied in the reading room.
Aerial photographs
Special Collections holds several collections of aerial photographs. Two collections are digitally available: The RAF aerial photographs from 1943-1947 and The Grebbelinie photographs from 1939.
Academic heritage
Special Collections holds several collections that were made or used either in education or during research practices at Wageningen University & Research and its forebears in the past. The major part consists of image collections covering plant, animal and environmental sciences. The collections are available for research in their original shape and can be studied in the reading room. A part of these collections is digitally available.
Agricultural engineering
Special Collections holds a unique and large collection of digitised photos from the former IMAG. And a large set of printed brochures and manuals of all agricultural machinery traded in the Netherlands in the 20th century.
Maps and atlases
The Maps and Atlas Collection at Special Collections holds many maps, modern and old, topographic and thematic, printed and in manuscript, and a small collection of atlases of the Netherlands and the former colonies Dutch Indonesia and Suriname.
Nursery catalogues
The Special Collections has an international collection of approximately 35.000 printed catalogues of nurseries specialised in ornamental plants, bulbs and trees from 1612 and onwards. Also catalogues on fruit, vegetables and agricultural crops and seeds are available. They are used for historical plant research on (agro)cultural biodiversity, the history of plant breeding and for the reconstruction of planting in historical gardens and parks.
Special Collections Ordering & Support
The Special Collections of Wageningen University and Research - Library holds collections that need particular care and attention, in management, conservation and accessibility for the user. The collections consist of old, rare, vulnerable or deviant materials. Please contact us when you have any questions. We will gladly help to find what you are looking for.
Exhibitions
Special Collections of Wageningen University & Research - Library organises exhibitions on the edge of science and heritage, on site and online.
WUR Image Collections
Special Collections holds large image collection of digitised photos, drawings, paintings and wall charts. Most images can be downloaded for free and used for non-commercial use.
Exhibitions
Beautiful Botany, on view from 7 March until 15 July, 2025
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More info about Hofstee's puzzle in Hofstee's puzzle: a socio-geographic innovation from the 1950s.
