Finna Street presents the history of summer cities and holiday destinations
Finna Street finds pictures of the place where you are. When you pinpoint your location or limit the map, the service will find photos for you in Finna among more than a million photos from Finnish museums, libraries and archives.
Finna Street allows anyone to find out what the area around their summer cottage used to look like or how an urban landscape has changed. Finna Street can be used anywhere, but gives the best results when used outdoors.
”Finna Street is like Pokemon Go for people who are interested in history. Comparing old photographs with the landscape that opens up in front of you is rewarding, and photographs can also give you insight into historical events. This way, the significance of a new place will open up in a new way”, says Susanna Eklund, service planner at Finna.
The service works best in large cities, of which Finna has lots of photos. In central Helsinki, for example, there is lots of material even for specific streets. For popular holiday destinations, such as Tampere and Turku, the service will find thousands of photos.
“In smaller places, I recommend turning the idea around and limiting the map to see what photo material there is from the place, and then observing how the area has changed”, says Susanna Eklund.
The service is easy to use and free of charge
You can use Finna Street this way, for example:
- Go to the address www.finna.fi/street on your phone.
- Allow the use of your location when prompted, or limit the map to the desired area.
- All done! Now you can view photos, or continue to limit the results, for example to a specific time period.
The search results depend on the location data registered for the material. If the search results seem inadequate, you can keep searching with a normal Finna.fi search.
Finna Street is part of the National Library’s Finna service. Finna Street opened in 2017 and is based on an idea of better use of cultural heritage material in the form of pictures.