Academic heritage
From the collection of Antarctic researcher and UHasselt emeritus Tony Van Autenboer to the hundreds of scale models, old scientific instruments, and animal collections in the numerous cabinets and display cases. Countless objects at UHasselt have their own remarkable stories.
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Treasures in UHasselt cabinets
While UHasselt may be a young university, we are certainly old enough to have heritage. Numerous objects showcase compelling developments in scientific research and education at our university.
Academic heritage is a very broad term. The objects are as diverse as the wide range of disciplines practiced at UHasselt: from collections of minerals, herbaria, and architectural scale models to various scientific measuring instruments...
Objects that illustrate the history of UHasselt also belong to the academic heritage. Think of the attributes of student associations (caps, banners, songbooks...) or flags showing the various UHasselt and LUC logos throughout the years. Additionally, deep-rooted traditions, such as the annual student elections or the regatta, are part of our intangible DNA.
Academic heritage in your rooms or cabinets? Let us know!
Registering = preserving and validating
Whether these items are related to inspiring education, innovative research, or student experience, numerous unique objects embody the collective memory of our university. By mapping this academic heritage, we can better preserve these pieces and the stories they tell. In addition, the systematic inventorying of our heritage offers an excellent opportunity to make our collections more accessible to a wider audience. Indeed, we believe that all these fascinating stories are worth sharing: with UHasselt staff and current and former students, but also more broadly with our friends and supporters in Limburg and the academic community at large.
The University Library represents UHasselt in the interuniversity working group dedicated to the registration, dissemination, and valuation of academic heritage at the five Flemish universities. In the coming years, like our colleagues in Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Leuven, we will systematically inventory and make accessible the academic heritage of our university, in first instance through a digital platform.
Anyone who has UHasselt heritage stored away can help us in this challenging venture. Items of interest potentially include mementos from your student days, dusty measuring instruments, or brand-new equipment that you recently used for groundbreaking research. Let us know because today's high-tech is tomorrow's academic heritage. The only condition is that the objects are managed by the university.
To be clear, we do not intend to remove the heritage from their homes in your faculty or research group. We would, however, be delighted to come by and learn the stories behind your collections, gain a general overview of the heritage objects, and describe the collection.