In September 1996, the first pilot Media Lab was started by Dr. Erwin Bakker (erwin@liacs.nl) and Dr. Michael Lew (mlew@liacs.nl) toward creating a core place for scientific multimedia research.

In September 1998, Erwin Bakker and Michael Lew submitted the proposal for a formal budget for the LIACS Media Lab to support advanced multimedia education and research within the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS). During 1998-99, the lab was situated in room 206 and was an integral part of official LIACS programs and demonstrations. After renovation of the ground floor area, the main LML was moved to a position behind a 30 foot video projection wall located at the entrance of the computer science building (Niels Bohrweg 1, 2333 CA Leiden, The Netherlands).

In 2003, during the renovation of the entire building, the LML was shifted to another nearby location in the lobby of the computer science building.

The LML is connected to several university courses which include Artificial Intelligence, Computer Graphics, Interactive Video and Internet and Multimedia Systems. Research directions include content based retrieval from image and video databases, speech recognition and synthesis, virtual studios, affective computing, internet systems, and interactive video.

Projects at the LML have received national and international coverage in both scientific circles (IEEE Computer, IEEE Conf. on Multimedia, etc.), newspapers, and on international television.