Manga lending library

The Let's Manga project at the Catholic University of Leuven resulted in, among others, a diverse research collection of well over eight hundred manga, manga magazines, dojinshi (amateur manga), and books on Japanese popular culture. We believe it makes little sense to hoard research materials in closed offices. Books should be enjoyed and put to good use. So in the spirit of open research, the manga in the Let's Manga collection are now available for browsing and borrowing by any interested parties -manga researchers, university staff and students, and anyone just looking for a good read.

The collection has grown to its current size largely through generous contributions by Kansai University, Glénat Benelux publications, and many private donors. Please consider supporting us by donating Japanese-language or translated manga!

'Temporary collection' system

Have a lot of manga lying around that you don't read but don't want to give away? Temporarily share your collection with the library so that others may enjoy your manga like you did. We will indicate your ownership of the manga in our catalog so that you can take your collection back home whenever you want. Contact us for more information.

Online manga knowledge base

In addition to the physical library, the Let's Manga project has also constructed an online knowledge base containing a wide variety of manga-related academic articles, book references, and just interesting tidbits of manga news. The knowledge base contains nearly four thousand entries and is entirely open access. How to browse and search the manga knowledge base

Location of the library: room 07.17, seventh floor of Erasmus building (Faculty of Arts, Blijde Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven)

Opening hours: every Tuesday and Thursday, 14h to 17h30 on Tuesday and 14h to 16h on Thursday, and any other time when Nele Noppe or Hans Coppens are present in room 07.17

A few rules:

• Anyone can borrow manga for free, also non-university affiliates. HELP US KEEP THE LIBRARY FREE by returning manga in good condition and in a timely fashion. We're trusting folk and don't want to bother with pesky things like late fees, but will start using them anyway if people take advantage of the system at the expense of others.
• A maximum of five manga may be borrowed at the same time, always for a period of two weeks with extensions granted only in special cases (needing the manga for a research project etc).
• All manga and pop culture-related books on shelves marked A, B and C may be borrowed. Manga on shelves marked D have not been cataloged yet or are needed on site for translation work. Read shelf D manga at your leisure inside the library, but do not take them out of the room for any reason.

Contact
Nele Noppe
Faculty of Arts, box 3318
Blijde Inkomststraat 21
3000 Leuven
nele.noppe@arts.kuleuven.be, or tel. 016/325042