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The National Library's travel-themed treasures digitised for open online use
The National Library of Finland has digitised Finnish or Finnish-themed travel books from the 17th to the 19th centuries as part of the EuropeanaTravel project, organised jointly by European research libraries and national libraries.
These materials are available both through the National Library's Doria publications archive and the Europeana portal, operated jointly by European memory institutions.
Launched in 2009 and funded by the European Commission and EU Member States, the EuropeanaTravel project is coordinated by the National Library of Estonia. The travel-themed materials, digitised in different countries, comprise a multilingual and multicultural entity which offers new starting points for research.
The National Library of Finland has digitised over one hundred works. This historically significant material illustrates how Finland and Finns were seen during the period of Swedish rule.
Travelling on the Ice over the Gulf of Bothnia to Finland
Giuseppe Acerbi, 1802
The material includes, among other sources, old geography textbooks and some of the first travelogues about Finland, complete with pictures and maps. Works related to Lapland are particularly well represented.
In its own contribution to the EuropeanaTravel project, the National Library of Finland focused on improving the usability of the materials by providing English-language descriptions, including the provenance, for all works in different languages.
www.doria.fi
www.europeana.eu
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IN BRIEF
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