The books are only listed in the PThU catalogue, via which PThu staff and students can request them. The request forms are printed on a separate printer in the Zernike stacks and the books are delivered twice a week to the building in the Oude Ebbingestraat. PThU staff and students are given access to the electronic databases (proxy), for which they receive a P or S number. They also receive a free library card so that they can borrow books from the UB collection.

In exam periods, students invariably call for extended opening hours of the library; as a modest response, and because a night like this is a good way to strengthen ties with our users, the UB remained open in the night of 18 to 19 January 2012.

There was a warm welcome in the stairwell by director Marjolein Nieboer, followed by small-scale activities at regular intervals. The library’s thirty-millionth visitor, for instance, was given a festive welcome. Chinese student Lui Xiaowan, who’d never set foot in the UB before, didn’t know what had hit her!

There were still a few hundred students left in the building in the first hours after midnight; the general impression was that students do not want to stay up all night (which would  also affect their concentration during exams), but do want to continue beyond midnight, which is when the library usually closes.

However, a few dozen die-hards stayed all night: forty students stretched their legs during morning gymnastics led by Johan Poppinga, followed by a well-deserved free breakfast in the canteen.

Some of the highlights include:

• The complete series of the magazine Der Clercke Cronike (1924-1972), predecessor of the UK.
• The Chinese fish collection, hand-painted illustrations of 300 types of fish from oriental seas and rivers (19^th century).
• Wittewierum Chronicle, or the Emo and Menko manuscripts, chronicling events at the 13^th-century Bloemhof monastery in Wittewierum.
• The Groningen Zutphen Maerlant manuscript, with Maerlant’s ‘Rijmbijbel’ and ‘Spiegel Historiael’.
• Manuscripts of the Groningen professor Mello Brunsema, first professor of Law.
• Johannes Siertsema’s and Klaas Willem Kiers’s alba amicorum (friendship books; 18^th century).
• Programmata (official announcements) of the University of Groningen.
• Historical maps from the Special Collections department.