About Alex

Alex Alsemgeest (1980) is a Dutch book historian and bibliographer. Since september 2021 he is curator of Library Collections at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

Photo credit: Monique Kooijmans

My professional interests include the history of collections, early modern book trade, natural history, material culture and cultural transfer. In 2020-2021 I was active as a project manager for the project ‘Unlocking the Fagel Collection’ at Trinity College Library in Dublin. Some earlier completed projects include a full-scale investigation of the historical collections of the library of the House of Representatives in The Hague (2018-2020), the Leufsta project of Uppsala University Library (2018-2020) and the bibliographical description of the Bibliotheca Carcinologica at Naturalis Biodiversity Center (2013-2015). What all these projects have in common is that detailed bibliographical description of individual objects and the creation of structured data, form a solid base for research, education and public outreach.  

Publications by Alex include books, chapters, peer-reviewed articles, popular work and blog posts. The book In krabbengang door kreeftenboeken (2016) won a nomination for the Jan Wolkers Prijs for the best nature book of the year. His master thesis Dutch connections in Swedish collections (2017) was nominated for the Elsevier/Johan de Witt-scriptieprijs in October 2017, and honoured with the Dr. P.A. Tiele-Stichting scriptieprijs in April 2018.

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