Libraries of the World: National Library of Norway

The National Library of Norway is located in Oslo, Norway. It was established in 1989. Before then, starting in the early 1800s, the served as a national library. On its website, the library explains its strategy:

It is the ambition of the National Library of Norway to be the nation’s memory and a multimedia centre for knowledge and culture.

The main goals of the National Library are to:

• be one of Europe’s most exciting and modern national libraries
• preserve, give access to and actively mediate the cultural heritage through the development of modern digital library services
• be a source of and an infrastructure for research, learning, culture and language development
• contribute to making the research and public libraries into active and topical institutions of society

A key aspect of achieving these goals is international collaboration, and the National Library of Norway participates in a number of international forums, including:

• Europeana is a joint European digital library, organised by the European Library. The European digital library highlights European cultural heritage through several million digital objects displayed online.
• The European Film Gateway (EFG) is a website providing access to digitalised film material. The portal is a collaboration between filmarchives, the libraries and cinemas across the whole of Europe. The National Library of Norway is responsible for EFG in Norway.
• The National Library participates in the European project Daguerreobase, along with The University Library and 16 other partners from across Europe. The aim of the project is to establish an image database consisting of more than 25 000 daguerreotypes. Information and image files from this base will also be communicated via Europeana. The Daguerreobase- project started in 2012 and will be completed in 2015. The project is funded by the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP), which is part of the EU’s stimulus program for innovation and competitiveness.

Digitization plans

One of the more exciting projects for the library is to digitize its entire collection. A digitizing program started in 2006, and it will take up to 30 years for the whole collection to be digitized. An article in Ariadne, a web magazine for information professionals by Dr. Marianne Takle, a research director at NOVA Norwegian Social Research, a state social science research institute based in Oslo, Norway, described the project in detail. Dr. Takle noted that the digital national library has been given the name NBdigital, including books, documents, newspapers, film, radio, photographs, and manuscripts. The plans for this ambitious project were formulated in The Digital National Library– Strategy Manifesto 2005, arguing that library users in Norway, which is noted for its long, harsh winters, especially benefit from access to digital books at home. In addition, the Norwegian sector of the Internet was digitized, sites registered under the ‘.no’ Internet domain. How did they decide what to digitize first? A sin most digitization projects, priority was given to older and more fragile materials, since digitization is meant to preserve materials for future generations. Indeed, the library’s slogan is

to preserve the past for the future.

Old materials are usually also out of copyright. Newspapers of most interest to readers are digitized first. Photographs given to the National Library are given priority, as are music recordings which are in fragile condition. It also digitized materials by and about noted Norwegian writers during special anniversary years or celebrations for these authors. The National Library also digitizes material first which is of interest to other libraries, sometimes leading to cooperative agreements. In some cases, copyright laws require that although the library may digitize more recent material to preserve it, it may not make it available over the internet unless special arrangements are made.

 Archival treasures

Among the oldest documents in the National Library collection is David’s Psalms, a prayer book from the Kvikne church in Hedmark, southeastern Norway, a part of which dates to the 1200s, or about 900 years ago. From the 1300s, the library owns a document of historic importance, Magnus Lagabøte’s national law, decreed by Norway’s King Magnus Lagabøte in the 1200s, one of Europe’s first comprehensive national legislations. The King was given the name Lagabøte because in the Norwegian language, that word means

the one who improves the law.

Thailand and Norway

On the website of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Bangkok, His Excellency Kjetil Paulsen, Norway’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand, states:

I am happy to note that the bilateral relations between Thailand and Norway remain strong. Trade between the two countries continues to be at a very high level. In 2016 the value of Norwegian fish export to Thailand doubled, from about ½ billion Norwegian kroner to 1 billion. Norwegian salmon has become a very popular dish at Thai dinner tables. Norway’s Pension Fund (the former Petroleum Fund) continues to invest in Thailand. Some major Norwegian companies, including Telenor, Yara and Jotun, are important stakeholders in Thailand’s development and economy. Again the number of Norwegian tourists and business people that visited Thailand last year reached close to 150.000. At the same time, Thai tourism to Norway is growing and the embassy issued 10% more visas in 2016 compared to the year before. About 15.000 Thai citizens are living in Norway (more than 100 of them in Svalbard!) and they are very well integrated in the Norwegian society… Innovation Norway continues to work with the Norwegian seafood industry as well as inbound tourism to Norway and a number of Norwegian start-ups in Thailand.

Cultural exchanges

In February, it was announced that a 2,000-year-old old Tipitaka, Buddhist scriptures respected as exclusively authoritative in Theravada Buddhism, was given to Thailand by the Conservation Institute of the Schøyen Collection, Norway to be stored at Wat Saket in Pom Prap Sattru Phai district, Bangkok. The Schøyen Collection houses ancient and rare manuscripts in what is believed to be the largest private manuscript collection in the world, located in Oslo and London. Formed by Dr. Martin Schøyen, a Norwegian businessman and collector, its subjects range over 5,000 years of history. The Tipitaka, written on palm leaves, was discovered in the mountains of Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

The Schoyen Collection contains about 20 Buddhist manuscripts. The collection’s website explains that the gift was made under the auspices of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University (MCU), the oldest Buddhist university in Thailand, located at Wat Mahathat Yuwaratrangsarit in Bangkok and Wang Noi campus. The donor, Dr. Schøyen, explained:

As a collector, I have always been driven by the need to study and conserve the best of human civilization. It is very gratifying to know that these two fragments are in the care and protection of a living community of adherents.

In 2010, part of the Schoyen Collection was shown in an exhibit at Phutthamonthon, a Buddhist park in the Phutthamonthon district, Nakhon Pathom Province, west of Bangkok. On the occasion of this exhibit, Traces of Gandharan Buddhism – An Exhibition of Ancient Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Dr. Schøyen stated:

I am proud to have played a part in preserving these important parts of Buddhist scripture so that they can now be studied by scholars and venerated by believers half a world away from where they rested for centuries, but where they came under threat of destruction.

And in 2015, Dr. Schøyen, was awarded an honorary doctorate by MCU for his contribution to historical preservation and academic research, especially in relation to Buddhist scholarship.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the National Library of Norway)