National Library of Finland (Kansalliskirjasto)

Overview

The National Library of Finland (Kansalliskirjasto) is Finland's foremost research library, located near Senate Square in Helsinki. It is administratively part of the University of Helsinki and, by Finnish law, serves as the country's legal deposit library, receiving copies of all printed matter and audiovisual materials (except films) produced in or for distribution in Finland.

History

The library's roots trace to 1640, when the gymnasium at Turku was elevated to the Royal Academy of Turku; the gymnasium's book collection of roughly 20 volumes became the founding collection of the Academy's library. A 1707 letter from the Royal Chancellery ordered Swedish printing houses to supply the empire's universities with one copy of each publication. After Finland became an autonomous part of the Russian Empire in 1809, the library received deposit copies of Russian publications from 1820 to 1917. In 1828 the university relocated to Helsinki as the Imperial Alexander University; its new building, designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, was inaugurated in 1832, and a dedicated library building north of it, also by Engel, opened in 1845. A later extension, the Rotunda, designed by Gustaf Nyström, was completed in 1906. The institution was known as the Helsinki University Library from 1919 until August 1, 2006, when an amendment to the Universities Act renamed it the National Library of Finland; ownership of the library building had transferred from the state to University of Helsinki funds the previous year. Extensive renovations of the main building and Rotunda took place between 2011 and 2015, and the historic building reopened to the public on March 1, 2016.

Collections, Holdings, and Publications

The library holds more than three million items, including books, newspapers, maps, sheet music, and rare manuscripts, and maintains one of the world's most comprehensive collections of publications from the former Russian Empire. The bulk of the collection is stored in Kirjaluola ("book cave"), a 57,600-cubic-meter underground facility drilled into rock 18 meters beneath the library.

Access and Usage

Any resident of Finland may register as a library user to borrow materials, though items in the national collection, manuscript collections, and materials published before 1900 are restricted to reading-room use only. The library is open to the public and admission is free.