Fifty years ago the Prentenkabinet Leiden was the first in the Netherlands to start collecting photographs besides prints and drawings. The Prentenkabinet manages a collection of original photo-historical objects that offers a representative overview of the many facets of the photographic medium and of the processes that were developed throughout its history. The collection material includes photography from its invention (in 1839) up to the present, with an emphasis on Dutch photography and on diversity in the processes.

The Prentenkabinet/ Study and Documentation Centre for Photography (SDCF) is now a public institution that is part of the University Library of Leiden. The collections of prints, drawings and photographs are used intensively throughout the entire educational programme of the Art History faculty.

This collection of Indonesian photographs can be accessed by photographer, but can also be searched by location. Contemporary Dutch spelling has been chosen to access the place names in Indonesia: Jakarta, for instance, rather than Batavia or Djakarta.