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About us

The Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library is located in Antwerp’s bustling city centre. For over five centuries, the library has been collecting and preserving Flemish cultural heritage.

From student programme to exhibition: Design for Digital Reading

What can a book from the 17th century teach us about digital reading? During the three-year programme Design for Digital Reading, a team of students, instructors and curators delved into the Heritage Library’s historical collection. The assignment was just as simple as it was complex: use the analogue books as a breeding ground for digital reading innovations. The result? An exposition full of innovative prototypes that redefine the boundaries of reading and experience. 

The Esperanto collection of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library

In 2016, the Hendrik Conscience Library acquired a large part of the library of the Flandra Esperanto-Ligo or Flemish Esperanto League. We’re talking to Esperantist Cyreen Knockaert, who has been cataloguing this collection for us as a volunteer.

The Conscience-Lantslot

A rare gem

Earlier this year, the Medieval Manuscripts in Flemish Collections-project identified several fragments of a (post-)incunable of the famous Lanseloet van Denemerken in the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library. 'Een seer ghenoechlycke historie vanden edelen Lantslot ende die Schone Sandryen' is undoubtedly a valuable new addition to the library’s sizeable collection of Dutch literary treasures.

Images of a changing city: photographs of Antwerp from the 1860’s

In 1860, photographer Edmond Fierlants (1819-1869) was given the task of documenting the historical monuments of the city. It was one of the first large-scale series of urban photography in the world.

Friends and donors

The Heritage Library has numerous friends and donors. Would you like to join them in supporting us? You can do so by donating books, getting involved as a volunteer or by making a financial donation.

Collection

The Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library spans more than five centuries of Antwerp and Flemish history. Its unique and complete collection encompasses rare old editions as well as more contemporary publications and popular, contemporary periodicals, on paper, microfilm or in digital form.

Ulysses to Baedeker

Three centuries of travel advice in pocket size

Gerrit Verhoeven is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of History of the University of Antwerp. As an urban historian, he specialises in early modern Europe, particularly – but not only – the Low Countries and Western Europe. He has published on travel and tourism, on time awareness and human capital, on the resilience of social relations, and on book history. In this blogpost he writes about the research potential of travel guides kept in the collection of Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.

Newsroom

The Heritage Library is the repository for modern and historical newspapers and periodicals – on paper, on microfilm or in digital form.