1. Consult our search engine.
2. We do not lend material from our collection. Therefore, make a list of the items you want to see (maximum 12 items) and send the list to info@ihlia.nl
3. We will contact you about when you can peruse the material.

You can research through the entire archive via online catalogue. It is an useful search environment with all kinds of applications which leads you easily to your desired result, such as the Homosaurus (keywords) and the ability to filter your results. Moreover, you can easily request your selection of documents (maximum 12 items) by pressing the button ‘Add to your selection’ and sending the list to us.

Our collection is constantly replenished with new material. In Acquisitions, you will always find the latest titles.

IHLIA has the largest collection in the area of lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) in the Netherlands and Europe. Whether you are looking for one of the essential books of reference or you are curious about the enormous collection of posters, photos and the more than 4,100 available national and international magazine titles, IHLIA has it or knows where to find it.

In 1912, Esquire Jacob Anton Schorer established the Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee (NWHK). With the help of a salvaged catalogue and its supplements, IHLIA has reconstructed most of this unique and historic library.

Schorer’s work was taken over by Jaap van Leeuwen, one of the founders of the Center for Culture and Leisure (COC). His collection became the foundation for the Van Leeuwen Library which also contains the old COC book collection.

An indispensable part of the IHLIA collection consists of archives from private individuals and organizations that play or have played a major role in the struggle for homosexual/lesbian emancipation. Without IHLIA, this part of the cultural heritage would have been lost forever.

Open Up! is an IHLIA project about the emancipation and development of the lgbt, mainly in central, east and southeast Europe. Its purpose is to make a large number of magazines and organization archives accessible online and in digital format.

With the enormous quantity of information, sometimes you don’t know where to begin searching or where you can find it. IHLIA is glad to help!

Our bibliographies contain the most recent titles of books, articles, research papers or theses about various aspects of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism.

IHLIA manages many private and organization archives. These are accommodated in the International Institute for Social History (IISH) and can be perused there.

In the Pink Cabinet, you will find ‘pink’ books and films that deal with the themes of lgbt. IHLIA started this project with the Amsterdam Public Library (OBA), because even when such material was available in libraries, it was often difficult to find or simply not visible.

For the Pink Life Stories, trained volunteers have written the biographies of homosexual elderly people.

IHLIA considers it vital to save the stories from and about the lgbt community. That way they can be read, viewed and listened to not only by the current generation, but also by future ones.