National Library of Sweden Kungliga biblioteket (KB)

Overview

The National Library of Sweden (Kungliga biblioteket, KB) is the Swedish government agency responsible for collecting and preserving everything published in Sweden, coordinating Swedish research library services, and promoting reading and information access. It is one of Scandinavia's oldest and most significant libraries.

History and Founding

The Kungliga biblioteket was founded in 1661 and has served as Sweden's national library ever since. It functions as a government agency under the Ministry of Education and Research. Karin Grönvall serves as National Librarian and Executive Director.

Collections and Holdings

The KB is Sweden's legal deposit library and holds millions of items, including books, journals, newspapers, manuscripts, maps, photographs, digital publications, radio and television broadcasts, and other audiovisual materials. The media collections—originally held by the National Archive for Recorded Sound and Moving Images (Statens ljud- och bildarkiv)—were merged with the KB in 2009 and now encompass approximately eight million hours of radio, television, film, video, and audio recordings, making it one of the world's largest media collections. The KB also holds an extensive collection of digitised historical Swedish newspapers in collaboration with the National Archives.

Media and Journalism Collections

The KB's newspaper archive is of exceptional significance for journalism research. Through the digital newspaper project funded by Acadia in 2018, all copyright-free Swedish newspapers (pre-1906, estimated at 1,250 titles) are being digitised and made freely accessible online. The media archive includes broadcasts from Swedish radio and television from the earliest decades of broadcasting.

Access

The library is open to the public, with a library card required to access on-site collections. Services and hours vary; the main reading rooms are open Monday–Saturday with specific hours listed on the website.