[Proceedings of the VII international symposium 'Cultural heritage in geosciences, mining and metallurgy : libraries, archives, museums' : "Museums and their collections" held at the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Leiden (The Netherlands), 19-23 May, 2003 / Cor F. Winkler Prins and Stephen K. Donovan (editors)]: The VII International Symposium 'Cultural Heritage in Geosciences' at Leiden: an introduction

Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................1 The meeting.......................................................................................................................................................2 Excursions...........................................................................................................................................................2 References...........................................................................................................................................................4 Introduction The Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Naturalis at Leiden, The Netherlands, was host to the VII International Symposium 'Cultural Heritage in Geosciences, Mining and Metallurgy: Libraries - Archives - Museums' (Fig. 1). It was a rather special place for such a meeting since it is near the North Sea, whilst most previous symposia were in mountainous regions, apart from the III Symposium, which was held in Saint Petersburg on the Baltic coast. Further, it is a general natural history museum with no special connection to mining. Although the archives and library play an important role in the museum, the emphasis was different in comparison with the other symposia, which was made clear by the theme of the meeting, "Museums and their collections." Although mining has not a long tradition in The Netherlands, if one ignores the prehistoric flint industry, some important collections of our Museum, and part of its library and archives, are directly linked to it (Winkler Prins, 2004). A good example is the Jongmans collection, which was brought together by the first director of the 'Geologisch Bureau voor het Mijngebied' (Geological Bureau for the Mining Area) of the 'Rijks Geologische Dienst' (Geological Survey of The Netherlands). Professor W.J. Jongmans (1878-1957) is famous as the initiator of the International Congresses on Carboniferous Stratigraphy, the so-called 'Heerlen Congresses.' The Jongmans collection gives a complete documentation of the Carboniferous stratigraphy and plant fossils from the coal mines in south Limburg (The Netherlands), and is one the