Finna.fi user volumes reached new records

The user volumes for Finna.fi reached a record high in 2022, exceeding four million visitors for the first time. The service is growing each year thanks to its diversifying content and new users. 

Finna.fi introduces visitors to art, culture and learning, and it was visited over 4.25 million times last year. This represents a growth of 10 per cent over the previous year.

The undeniable strength of the service lies in the diversity of its content, because Finna’s users consist of people searching for both knowledge and entertainment. As usual, images were the most popular content type, totalling 8.7 million views.

“Finna is still best known for its photographs. Over the last year, a lot of new images were added thanks to material from the Finnish Museum of Photography and ITE (outsider) art’s collections. The photographic content is also strongly represented thanks to Finna Street, as the location data-based service focuses on historical photographs,” says Finna’s Head of Development Erkki Tolonen.

Finna also received a stunning 4.2 million search requests for books. This volume is partially due to Finna’s increasingly strong position in the Finnish library field, as Tampere and 32 other municipalities implemented online library services based on the Finna platform services. More growth can be expected when the capital region’s Helmet libraries launch their new online library.

The home of research-based knowledge

Recent events are also reflected in Finna. The service’s most popular keywords included “Ukraine” and “houseplants”. Like in previous years, genealogy and material such as old class photos comprised a large portion of the searches. 

Finna’s position as the home of reliable information also continued to strengthen last year. Finna.fi led users to university theses a total of 720,000 times.

“Many university libraries use Finna as their online library, which means students can easily find theses,” says Erkki Tolonen. 

The increase in the use of research-based knowledge is also explained by Finna’s Shortcut to research-based knowledge page, which compiles research-based knowledge produced by universities in one place. The page includes more than a hundred Finnish scientific journals and yearbooks, all of which are directly accessible online.

Adding materials from Finnish research institutes was another addition to Finna in 2022. Finna searches will now also find articles and scientific publications from the Finnish Environment Institute and the Finnish Food Authority. 

Top 10 most popular material providers in 2022:

1. National Board of Antiquities
2. National Library of Finland
3. National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI)
4. Helsinki City Museum
5. National Museum of Finland
6. Jyväskylä University Library
7. Finnish Forest Museum Lusto
8. Museum Centre Vapriikki
9. 3AMK (library materials of Haaga-Helia, Laurea and Metropolia universities of applied sciences)
10. Helmet (Espoo, Helsinki, Kauniainen and Vantaa city libraries)

Key figures of the Finna.fi service in 2022: 

• Home to cultural and scientific material in Finland. 
• Developed by the National Library in cooperation with 479 archives, libraries, museums and research institutes. 
• 4.2 million visits. 
• 17.4 million materials, of which 2.9 million are directly accessible online. 
• A total of 122 organisations have their own Finna websites.

Finna’s cookie practices were changed in autumn 2022, which also affected visitor statistics. Some figures are not directly comparable with the 2021 figures.