Past examples of similar processes within Leiden University, e.g. Instituut Kern, ultimately prove to be unsatisfactory and disappointing as (knowledge about) the library collection and its community of users are dispersed. The obvious detrimental short- and longer-term consequences are clear, the advantages elusive. The independent status of the NINO helps to foster and nurture its academic community via its space and resources, thus driving excellent research. It must be rigorously defended against cost-reducing measures dressed up as improvements, especially in the apparent absence of broad consultation and consensus.
J
Jesús Martínez Fernández
9 years ago
PhD student in Landscape Archaeology
J
Jeroen van Eijk
9 years ago
NINO needs to be independent for all kind of scientific reasons and also for the accessibility of the collection.
J
Joost Hagen
9 years ago
Egyptology in Leiden is unthinkable without the NINO library both as its home and its tool, and the same holds true for Assyriology. Where else are professors, students, guests, books and antiquities together in such a quiet and stimulating environment? Apparently it is not enough that people in Leiden might be forced out of their houses for the new building plans of the university - does also the whole scholarly community of Egyptologists and Assyriologists worldwide have to suffer from these plans? Please reconsider!
M
Martin Uildriks
9 years ago
I was a graduate student at Leiden from 2008 until 2011 during which I made extensive use of the NINO's facilities. In 2015 I started my PhD at Brown University (Providence). Since 2008 I have had the pleasure to engage with a great many libraries in the US and many other large cities and large institutions such as Cambridge (UK), the Egypt Exploration Society (London), and many more. The NINO, as an institution with its library and collections, is entirely unparalleled anywhere! The library exceeds Oxford's Sackler, its location integrating university staff and archaeological collections as a tool for teaching and research is unique, and its independence provides it the flexibility to define this incredibly important aspect of this institution. Its own rules and character have made NINO a world-leading institution; by dissolving the institute, Leiden would certainly loose its global high-ranking position in the fields of Near Eastern studies, but would moreover loose an important part of its personality that NINO has partly come to define for many scholars.
M
Monica Palmero Fernandez
9 years ago
PhD student in archaeology of ANE and assyriology at Reading University, UK
E
Elizabeth Fleming
9 years ago
A centre of excellence is reliant on the power of its internal resources. A centre of excellence is reliant on the strength of its internal resources. NINO's integrity needs to be observed and staunchly defended against restructuring solutions designed to address short-term issues that would ultimately strip away irreplaceable assets from staff and researchers.
J
Jonny Russell
9 years ago
The NINO is an international powerhouse for the study of Egyptology and the Ancient Near East. It has consistently contributed leading research since its founding and must be allowed to continue to do so independently. Dismantling it and dividing its assets will deny future generations the exceptional facilities currently offered for conducting innovative research.
J
Juergen Zangenberg
9 years ago
Please see this unique opportunity for pioneering research and inspiring teaching and do not tear NINO apart.
N
Nehemie Strupler
9 years ago
NINO has a tremendous impact on Near-Eastern Studies fostering interdisciplinary and international research at the highest level.
K
Karel Van Lerberghe
9 years ago
The NINO is at the very top of scholarly research in Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. By integrating it into a larger institution it would loose it's independency.
M
Mathijs Smith
9 years ago
The NINO should remain an (semi-)independent institute, able to steer its own intellectual and academic course, unhindered by the universities fickle plans which keep changing. The university's wish to provide a new home for the faculty of Humanities should not be used as a cover to dismantle and incorporate the NINO into the machinery of university policy. Leiden university's motto is "Libertatis Praesidium", Bastion of Freedom, and it has a long tradition of working with independent institutes. This guarantees the freedom of both the university and these institutes. It is this freedom which helped the NINO become such an excellent institute, do not throw that away. Concerning the argument of "added scientific value", the NINO hosts a collection of important scientific literature which is one of the best in this field. The library is used daily by Archaeologists, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, (ancient) historians, religion scientists, specialists in the near east, and the modern middle east; it provides a place to study and read exactly for those who need it, and whose scientific field benefits most from the NINO. Sure, the visitor numbers are low compared to e.g. the university library, but rest assured that all the visitors of the NINO are there to do serious work, not (as in the university library) to ''walk their books' and have coffee all day long.
D
Dr Nico Staring
9 years ago
An integrated and independent NINO is absolutely essential to the academic fields of Egyptology, Assyriology, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Leiden. The proposed changes will jeopardize Leiden's internationally leading position in these fields of study (a position that has been affected negatively by similarly stupid decisions in previous years). It is absolutely incredible that Leiden University and the NINO board propose to dismantle an institution that other universities around the world would wish to count as theirs.
B
Beatrix Gessler
9 years ago
Just an incredible and rather ridiculous idea, especially, if one is aware of the traditional, well established international importance of Egyptology in the Netherlands and of all its representatives in the various institutions (museums, universities etc.), and also of the many excavations in various central sites of Egypt! Please, stop this crazy idea!
L
Luigi Prada
9 years ago
Why did the University management decide to suggest such radical changes without consultation with the NINO staff and student body? NINO has a reputation as a world-leading institution in the field of Egyptology and ANES. To suggest that NINO should be radically reshaped (and its library facilities dispersed within a University-wide collection), considering how dynamic and productive an institution it already is, seems baffling to me.
B
Benjamin Foster
9 years ago
The Yale Babylonian Collection was recently the victim if a similar clueless set of decisions and will probably never be what it once was. Administrators cannot understand that some scholarly entities are better left alone.
E
Emily Zeran
9 years ago
NINO is a unique research facility with an international reputation and should not fall prey to what is clearly an attempt to (financially) undermine the already (socially) undervalued humanities disciplines. It has been a huge part of the development of Ancient Near Eastern Studies world-wide. What a wasteful enterprise many of these short-sighted, uninformed "cost cutting" measures so often turn out to be.
P
Professor Christopher Eyre
9 years ago
The extremely negative consequences of downgrading funding of independent Institutes, and more broadly of centralising Research Council funding in the UK should be a warning as a model that in the relative short term is subtracting scientific value
R
Ron Leenheer
9 years ago
Don't give this institute up! Action is essential!
D
Dimitri MEEKS
9 years ago
Dutch Egyptology and ANE studies are among the leading ones at the top the international community. Who dares to endanger it ? It is counter-productive considering the high standard image of Dutch research.
Dimitri MEEKS
Directeur de Recherche CNRS
Past examples of similar processes within Leiden University, e.g. Instituut Kern, ultimately prove to be unsatisfactory and disappointing as (knowledge about) the library collection and its community of users are dispersed. The obvious detrimental short- and longer-term consequences are clear, the advantages elusive. The independent status of the NINO helps to foster and nurture its academic community via its space and resources, thus driving excellent research. It must be rigorously defended against cost-reducing measures dressed up as improvements, especially in the apparent absence of broad consultation and consensus.
PhD student in Landscape Archaeology
NINO needs to be independent for all kind of scientific reasons and also for the accessibility of the collection.
Egyptology in Leiden is unthinkable without the NINO library both as its home and its tool, and the same holds true for Assyriology. Where else are professors, students, guests, books and antiquities together in such a quiet and stimulating environment? Apparently it is not enough that people in Leiden might be forced out of their houses for the new building plans of the university - does also the whole scholarly community of Egyptologists and Assyriologists worldwide have to suffer from these plans? Please reconsider!
I was a graduate student at Leiden from 2008 until 2011 during which I made extensive use of the NINO's facilities. In 2015 I started my PhD at Brown University (Providence). Since 2008 I have had the pleasure to engage with a great many libraries in the US and many other large cities and large institutions such as Cambridge (UK), the Egypt Exploration Society (London), and many more. The NINO, as an institution with its library and collections, is entirely unparalleled anywhere! The library exceeds Oxford's Sackler, its location integrating university staff and archaeological collections as a tool for teaching and research is unique, and its independence provides it the flexibility to define this incredibly important aspect of this institution. Its own rules and character have made NINO a world-leading institution; by dissolving the institute, Leiden would certainly loose its global high-ranking position in the fields of Near Eastern studies, but would moreover loose an important part of its personality that NINO has partly come to define for many scholars.
PhD student in archaeology of ANE and assyriology at Reading University, UK
A centre of excellence is reliant on the power of its internal resources. A centre of excellence is reliant on the strength of its internal resources. NINO's integrity needs to be observed and staunchly defended against restructuring solutions designed to address short-term issues that would ultimately strip away irreplaceable assets from staff and researchers.
The NINO is an international powerhouse for the study of Egyptology and the Ancient Near East. It has consistently contributed leading research since its founding and must be allowed to continue to do so independently. Dismantling it and dividing its assets will deny future generations the exceptional facilities currently offered for conducting innovative research.
Please see this unique opportunity for pioneering research and inspiring teaching and do not tear NINO apart.
NINO has a tremendous impact on Near-Eastern Studies fostering interdisciplinary and international research at the highest level.
The NINO is at the very top of scholarly research in Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. By integrating it into a larger institution it would loose it's independency.
The NINO should remain an (semi-)independent institute, able to steer its own intellectual and academic course, unhindered by the universities fickle plans which keep changing. The university's wish to provide a new home for the faculty of Humanities should not be used as a cover to dismantle and incorporate the NINO into the machinery of university policy. Leiden university's motto is "Libertatis Praesidium", Bastion of Freedom, and it has a long tradition of working with independent institutes. This guarantees the freedom of both the university and these institutes. It is this freedom which helped the NINO become such an excellent institute, do not throw that away. Concerning the argument of "added scientific value", the NINO hosts a collection of important scientific literature which is one of the best in this field. The library is used daily by Archaeologists, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, (ancient) historians, religion scientists, specialists in the near east, and the modern middle east; it provides a place to study and read exactly for those who need it, and whose scientific field benefits most from the NINO. Sure, the visitor numbers are low compared to e.g. the university library, but rest assured that all the visitors of the NINO are there to do serious work, not (as in the university library) to ''walk their books' and have coffee all day long.
An integrated and independent NINO is absolutely essential to the academic fields of Egyptology, Assyriology, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Leiden. The proposed changes will jeopardize Leiden's internationally leading position in these fields of study (a position that has been affected negatively by similarly stupid decisions in previous years). It is absolutely incredible that Leiden University and the NINO board propose to dismantle an institution that other universities around the world would wish to count as theirs.
Just an incredible and rather ridiculous idea, especially, if one is aware of the traditional, well established international importance of Egyptology in the Netherlands and of all its representatives in the various institutions (museums, universities etc.), and also of the many excavations in various central sites of Egypt! Please, stop this crazy idea!
Why did the University management decide to suggest such radical changes without consultation with the NINO staff and student body? NINO has a reputation as a world-leading institution in the field of Egyptology and ANES. To suggest that NINO should be radically reshaped (and its library facilities dispersed within a University-wide collection), considering how dynamic and productive an institution it already is, seems baffling to me.
The Yale Babylonian Collection was recently the victim if a similar clueless set of decisions and will probably never be what it once was. Administrators cannot understand that some scholarly entities are better left alone.
NINO is a unique research facility with an international reputation and should not fall prey to what is clearly an attempt to (financially) undermine the already (socially) undervalued humanities disciplines. It has been a huge part of the development of Ancient Near Eastern Studies world-wide. What a wasteful enterprise many of these short-sighted, uninformed "cost cutting" measures so often turn out to be.
The extremely negative consequences of downgrading funding of independent Institutes, and more broadly of centralising Research Council funding in the UK should be a warning as a model that in the relative short term is subtracting scientific value
Don't give this institute up! Action is essential!
Dutch Egyptology and ANE studies are among the leading ones at the top the international community. Who dares to endanger it ? It is counter-productive considering the high standard image of Dutch research. Dimitri MEEKS Directeur de Recherche CNRS