Digitising Swedish printed material

The library collaboration will take a holistic approach to systematically digitise and make accessible all Swedish print from the 1400s until today. One ambition of the collaboration is to simplify the use of digitised material, for example, by using open, linked data.

The libraries will digitise material from their collections and make it searchable via Libris, the Swedish national union catalogue.

Through digitisation, the project will establish an infrastructure of digital material. New research data will be available, and access to information and research data will increase.

Background

In January 2020, the project agreed to digitise and make all Swedish printed material available jointly.

The Swedish print is today challenging to access and partly fragmented. At the same time, research and the general public increasingly demand digitised material. By coordinating digitisation, the national digitisation pace will increase.

Karin Byström from Uppsala University Library has been the project manager since February 2021.

Project time

The project was initiated in 2020 by signing a letter of intent. It is a huge task and will take a long time to complete the project. 

Collaborative partners

The project is a collaboration between the National Library of Sweden and the five university libraries in Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Uppsala, and Umeå. 

Funding

The participating libraries initially fund the project, but the project will require additional external funding.

Find out more

National library collaboration will digitise Swedish printed material