Digitising and Giving Access to Newspapers in Swedish and Finnish via Collaboration Initiatives and Licensing Agreements

Abstract

The National Library of Finland (NLF) offers digitised Swedish-language newspapers published in Finland until December 1949 for open online use on https://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi. Online use is based on negotiations and collaboration with the copyright organisation. These newspapers have valuable Nordic research potential for historians, genealogists, citizen scientists etc. They enrich the understanding of everyday life, culture, and society. The project was funded by foundations and conducted with the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, resulting in 3.9 million digitised pages (1940 -2016). The earlier and later Swedish-language newspapers were digitised by the NLF: 2.1 million pages. We describe examples of several cooperation initiatives and their results in this paper: with copyright organisation, publishers, and funding organisations to digitise more and widen access possibilities beyond the norm and legal deposit libraries. Cooperation has enabled the NLF to give access to Swedish-language newspapers until the end of 2018 in digital form also in selected archives. The out-of-copyright Swedish-language newspapers are now available for data mining in the Finnish Research Infrastructure Dariah (dariah.fi) too. A separate researcher agreement allows research use of Swedish-language newspapers published until 2021, in selected Finnish universities. Some Finnish-language newspapers have been digitised in NLF - publisher partnerships, e.g. the biggest title Helsingin Sanomat. Some Finnish-language newspapers have also been digitised in cooperation with a foundation, like newspapers from the Käkisalmi region in the former Finnish Karelia. Online access to these has been funded by the foundation until the 1960s. Another example of a multi-year partnership with a foundation is the digitisation of Finnish labour newspapers. Access to in-copyright papers is granted locally in labour archives.

In cooperation with publishers, funds, foundations and partners, the National Library of Finland can accelerate the digitisation of cultural heritage materials and bring it to the use of citizens and researchers.