Projects

The National Library of Finland develops its operations in projects, the results of which will be channeled as a part of basic operations. In addition, the library participates in the development of its expertise and operating environment in externally funded projects.

There are several ongoing projects at the National Library of Finland, the most significant of which we present below in terms of their aims and outcomes.

  • Artists Unite! Collaborative and interoperable metadata using ISNIs

    Artists Unite! is a cross-sectoral collaboration project focused on International Standard Name Identifiers (ISNI). It will experiment with new information exchange processes enabled by ISNIs between copyright management organisations and art museums.

    The project involves Kuvasto (the Finnish copyright society for visual artists), the Finnish Museums Association and Finland’s Art and Art Collections Co-operative. The National Library of Finland coordinates the project in the capacity of the national ISNI registration agency.

  • Books of the Medieval Parish Church

    The project studies the book provision of parish churches in the medieval Kingdom of Sweden, using the book fragments of the National Library of Finland and the Royal Archives (Stockholm) as its principal sources.

  • Digital History for Literature in Finland

    The consortium project aims to use digital collections and methods to significantly expand the prevailing conception of Finnish literature history. In a joint project by the National Library of Finland, University of Turku and the University of Eastern Finland we will map Finnish and Swedish language 19th century fiction into an enriched format that permits large scale statistical analyses and the design of reproducible data science workflows.

  • Digitisation of Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat

    The project digitises the materials of Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat as a historical continuum from the beginning of the newspaper’s history until 31 December 1979. In accordance with the Act on Collecting and Preserving Cultural Materials and the Copyright Act, the National Library opens all its digitised material for the use of researchers and citizens free of charge in the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service at the National Library and other legal deposit libraries as well as permanently preserves the material in a digital format and for digital use in accordance with the digital preservation standards

  • FAIRCORE4EOSC

    FAIRCORE4EOSC advances the finding, examination, and utilisation of research outputs (such as research data, publications, and software) across national borders and scientific disciplines. 

  • Support for Sámi languages in digital services

    In this project, the National Library of Finland will create support services for the Northern Sámi language in three digital systems maintained by the National Library and used by many other institutions: Finna, Finto and Kotoistus. This will improve the visibility and findability of Sámi information and cultural heritage materials.

  • The adoption of ISNIs in Copyright Management Organisations

    The Finnish Copyright Management Organisations (CMO) Gramex, Kopiosto, Kuvasto, Sanasto and Teosto are involved in a project, in which a comprehensive range of international creative-sector contributor identifiers will be acquired for the rightholders represented by the organisations, the process involving International Standard Name Identifiers (ISNI) will be developed, and the quality of the metadata in the CMO databases will be enhanced. The National Library of Finland coordinates the project in the capacity of the national ISNI registration agency.

    The ISNI project consists of two overlapping stages. During the first stage (February 2022–December 2023), ISNIs will be acquired for rightholders represented by the Finnish CMOs. During the second stage (January 2023–December 2024), interfaces will be constructed to enable the effective distribution of ISNIs, and metadata in the CMO databases will be enriched.

  • Tradition and variation. Medieval chant in the Diocese of Turku

    Funded by the Academy of Finland, this research project analyses the National Library’s medieval resources from a musicological perspective. Its goal is to determine which melodies featured in the chants performed during mass at the medieval Diocese of Turku and how they lived on in post-Reformation Finland.