New projects in support of research and science
In addition to its basic duties, the National Library participates in a variety of projects, which allow to develop its operations, provide better conditions for research or draw on the resources or expertise of the National Library.
The last three projects launched at the National Library are connected with research and the strengthening of the conditions of science via information infrastructures. The ongoing projects involve cooperation with various partners, who often carry the primary responsibility for the project.
New projects include tracing medieval song melodies from parchment fragments, studying 19th century Finnish literature through data and AI, and building core functions for pan-European scientific data infrastructures. Below are brief descriptions of the National Library’s involvement in the projects. More information is available from the links provided.
Tradition and variation – Medieval chant in the Diocese of Turku (Academy of Finland, 1 September 2022–30 August 2026) uses as its primary material Medieval and 16th century hand-copied books and parchment fragments stored at the National Library. The material offers a great deal of information on musical life during the Medieval period. Jaakko Tahkokallio’s blog post “Kenen lauluja Suomen kirkoissa laulettiin keskiajalla?” (in Finnish) provides more information on the project.
The Digital History for Literature in Finland project (Academy of Finland, 1 September 2022–30 August 2024) studies the development of Finnish literary history in the 19th century using digital resources and methods. Led by the University of Turku, the project uses metadata from the Finnish National Bibliography Fennica, the Kanto and Asteri national data repositories for agent and names data on authors as well as applies the Annif tool, developed at the National Library, for analysing literary themes with artificial intelligence.
The FAIRCORE4EOSC project (Horizon Europe, 1 June 2022–31 May 2025) promotes opportunities for researchers to find, study and use research outputs (including research data, publications and software) across national and disciplinary boundaries. The project is carried out in extensive international cooperation and is coordinated by the CSC – IT Centre for Science. The project seeks to establish an infrastructure built on persistent identifiers and persistent web addresses for a European virtual ecosystem (EOSC, EOSC-Core) which compiles research data and associated services. The work done at the National Library is focused on the development of practices relating to various resource identification systems and the technical infrastructure based on URN identifiers maintained by the National Library according to international guidelines.
The project intends to develop services and promote the use of existing resources.
The National Library participates in a variety of projects that offer the opportunity to develop its operations in line with other institutions and help boost the national or international impact of the National Library’s services. Strengthening project and research cooperation is part of the National Library’s strategy (2021–2030).
The resources and services of the National Library are primarily available for all, meaning that specific projects or agreements are not needed to access them. Anyone can use the resources independently for their own research or many other purposes.
If the use of the collections or services requires cooperation not covered by normal services, the National Library may support a researcher through a cooperation contract or letter of support, for example.
Projects are an opportunity to conduct more involved and extensive cooperation. They also promote interaction between different organisations and experts.
The National Library is open to cooperation
Project cooperation provides a range of benefits for the National Library, including the opportunity to gain new information about the collections of the National Library, and to promote the quality of the metadata of the resources.
Project cooperation can also help enhance the National Library’s services and the national infrastructures it maintains, yielding benefits on a broader scale. The goal is to publish the results of the development work openly to be used by others – including new source code or information resources.
Contact the National Library to discuss new cooperation projects. For example, research cooperation can be requested through the contact form on the National Library’s website.
The variety of new projects reflects the National Library’s range of capacities as a partner. At the same time, the further development of the National Library’s operations would not be possible without cooperation and support from its many customers, networks and partners.
