Visit and Use of Collections

Materials from the collections of the International Institute of Social History (IISH), the Netherlands Economic History Archive (NEHA) and the Press collection (Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision) can be consulted in the Reading Room.

The reading room is open for everyone with an interest in the collections and consultation of documents is free of charge. The reading room is located on the first floor of the IISH building and overlooks the harbour in the Zeeburg district in East Amsterdam. The IISH cafeteria is on the ground floor. Coffee and soda machines are also available, as well as free wifi.

Prepare your visit

You can prepare your visit to the IISH from home by searching for IISH collection material online on this website:

All current descriptions of materials of the IISH collections are accessible via this website (or via the online catalogue).
You can request material for consultation at the reading room through the catalogue.
IISH collections are available for research purposes. Most of the collections are available without restrictions.
The physical collections of the IISH are stored in closed access stacks that cannot be browsed by the public.
Documents requested will be ready on the day of your visit as of 9.30 am.
Staff can set a limit to the number of requests received from a single individual at one time.
Your requested materials will usually be delivered to the reading room within 30 minutes.
No requests for material from stacks will be handled after 4 p.m.
For conservation purposes some collections are only available on microfilm and microfiche. Reading, printing, and scanning equipment is available.

More information on:
- rules concerning consultation
- request archives - request books and documents
- reproductions - copyrights - rates
- borrowing documents for exhibitions
- house rules
- machine access

Address and Opening Hours

Address for visitors:

Cruquiusweg 31
1019 AT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel + 31 20 6685866

Bank Account: IBAN NL63DEUT0411390805; BIC DEUTNL2N
CoC: 5667089
VAT: NL002958697B01

Opening hours of the Reading Room

Monday: 10.00 - 17.00
Tuesday till Friday: 9.00 - 17.00

No requests for documents, books, and serials will be handled after 4 p.m.
The building is accessible for wheel chairs users.
Read about the house rules of the IISH

Closing Days in 2019

The Institute is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. The Reading Room will be closed during the following days (2019):

1 January New Year's Day
19 April Good Friday
22 April Easter Monday
30 May Ascension Day
31 May Friday
10 June Whit Monday
25 December 2019 - 1 January 2020

How to get there

Public transport:

From Amsterdam Central Station: bus 22, bus stop Veelaan.
From Amsterdam Station Zuid: bus 65, bus stop Veelaan.
From Amsterdam Station Muiderpoort: bus 22, bus stop Veelaan or walk (15 minutes walking distance).
From the centre of Amsterdam: tram 7 to Van Eesterenlaan (a 10 minutes walk), tram 14 to Javaplein (a 5-10 minutes walk).
More information on the public transport website.

By car:

From the circular road (A10) take the junction Zeeburg (S114), proceed to the traffic lights, and follow the signs Zeeburg across the bridge (left turn). At the end of the bridge go right at traffic lights. At the next traffic lights, take the road to your right (Molukkenstraat). Proceed to the end of the Molukkenstraat; the IISH is the large white building ahead of you. Attention, there is only paid parking space near the IISH!

Consultation

Donors and owners of material on loan to the Institute may have imposed certain restrictions on accessing, copying, and publishing these collections or parts of collections, including a requirement for expressly requesting permission from the donor or owner. Restricted access to archives may also be necessary to protect the privacy of individuals or because of the physical condition of the material in question. To find out if access to a collection is limited, see the archive description page in our online catalogue.

If you wish to consult a collection in the Reading Room, please read our rules first.

Consultation rules

Request for permission

You can request permission to consult a collection with limited access directly through the archive description page in our online catalogue.

For more information please contact the Reading Room

Contact

For enquiries about the consultation of documents or ordering reproductions please go to the webform Contact.
As a general rule questions are answered within three weekdays.
If we do not have an answer to your question, we will try to refer you to another institution or specialist.

Registration

Anyone who wants to engage in research in archival collections and use the library of the IISH, NEHA, and Press collection is welcome to the reading room.
Pre-registration is not necessary, visitors are asked to register at our reading room desk on their first visit every year.
Researchers are asked to sign our guestbook on each visit.

Facilities

The reading room contains reference works on social economic history, recent issues of journals, and publications by IISH, NEHA, and Press collection. Researchers who need to spend extended periods working at the Institute can reserve a study carrel. Researchers have access to computers with Internet accessibility. Besides the online IISH search portal, various databases are available.

Researchers who bring their own laptops can use the free WiFi connection.

There is equipment available for:

scanning and copying documents
reading and scanning of microfilms and microfiches
watching video tapes, slides, and negatives
listening to CDs, LPs, and audio cassettes.

Visitors are welcome in the cafeteria on the first floor.

Temporarily unavailable

Some collections may be temporarily not available for consultation. This can occur if documents are being reinventorised, receiving conservation treatment, being digitized, due to shortage of stack space, or renovation. See the list of temporarily unavailable collections.

For more information on availability of collections please contact the reading room staff

Temporarily unavailable