Projects and collaborations
Uppsala University Library collaborates with departments and individual researchers in various projects to support education and research. Many projects involve making collections available by cataloguing, digitising and publishing material on the Alvin or the DiVA platform. This makes the collections of continued benefit to users throughout the world. Some recent projects are described in the list below.
Current collaborative projects
Etruscans in the Archive: Epigraphy and Intellectual History in Uppsala’s Etruscology Collection
The Swedish Institute in Rome
Funded by the Olle Engkvist Foundation
2025–2027
By digitising the Etruscological portions of Olof August Danielsson’s papers at Uppsala University Library, the project will make these materials widely accessible. This is the largest archival collection in the world focusing on the Etruscan language, yet it remains relatively unknown. The collection includes field notes, drawings, photographs, and squeezes, among other materials.
Methods from the digital humanities will be used to explore epigraphy and the history of ideas based on this collection. The project will also develop principles for digital editions of Etruscan and publish new readings of inscriptions.
Contact details for the project leader: Annie Burman
Biographical Studies
Swedish Literature Bank
Funded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
2024–2026
Digitisation and dissemination of books about Swedish individuals, published between 1800 and 1899.
Communicating Medicine: Digitalisation of Swedish Medical Periodicals, 1781–2011
Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2023–2026
The purpose of the project is to create a database (SweMPer) of Swedish medical periodicals published between 1781 and 2011.
Project description on the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond website.
The project and its members at Uppsala University.
Increasing the Visibility of Catalogue –1962 in Libris
Uppsala University Library
Funded by Uppsala University Library
2024–2025
The aim of this project is to enhance access to the Library’s older collections by automatically adding holdings information from the print version of Catalogue –1962 into Libris. This will make the material more readily available to researchers and facilitate national-level library collaborations in digitisation. The project uses technology such as AI-based transcription and APIs in order to streamline the transfer of metadata.
About the project Increasing the Visibility of Catalogue –1962 in Libris
Digitisation of the West Norse Manuscripts in Swedish Collections
Department of Scandinavian Languages
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2022–2025
The project is in three parts and aims to make the West Norse manuscripts available as images and electronically searchable research material.
Project description on the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond website.
Juridikbok.se – webbplats för svensk juridisk litteratur
Digitisation of legal literature that is no longer published in printed formats.
Stiftelsen för tillgängliggörande av juridisk litteratur (Foundation for Making Legal Literature Available), whose governing board consists of representatives of jurisprudence, the legal profession, the judiciary, legal publishers and the university libraries in Gothenburg, Lund, Stockholm, Umeå, Uppsala and Örebro.
2020–
Juridikbok.se – Swedish legal literature online.
National library collaboration digitising Swedish printed material
A collaboration has begun between the National Library of Sweden and the five university libraries in Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Uppsala and Umeå with the goal of digitising Swedish printed material from the 15th century until the present day.
Earlier collaborative projects
Gustav’s Hand: Digitisation, Digital Enhancement and Dissemination of the Gustavian Collection
Department of History, Uppsala University.
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2022–2024
The project aims to conserve and digitise the collection, using handwritten text recognition (HTR) to transcribe parts of the collection and make it searchable, to initiate teaching and research on the collection, and to present the collection and the work on it both within and beyond the academic community.
Project description on the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond website.
For current and up-to-date information, see gustavshand.ub.uu.se.
New Paths to the Past. Literary Cultural Heritage as Source Material for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Swedish Literature Bank
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2020–2024
Digitisation of Swedish fiction published as separate works throughout the 19th century. All material is made available to both researchers and the general public via three portals, each featuring newly developed tools for exploration and downloading.
Project description “New Paths to the Past” on the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond website.
For current and up-to-date information, see litteraturbanken.se (in Swedish)
Fennica – Digitisation of the Swedish Era Literature 1488–1809
A collaboration with the National Library of Finland concerning digitisation of works from the oldest Finnish national bibliography that are missing in Finland.
Funded by the National Library of Finland
2023
National Library of Finland description of Fennica.
The Swedish Era Literature collection.
Saint Barthélemy – Swedish Caribbean Colonialism 1784–1878
Funded by the Swedish Research Council in collaboration with Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities: “Project grant for digitising and making cultural heritage collections available”.
2019–2023
New research through integration, classification and publication of geographically dispersed and unexplored Swedish colonial archives.
Large quantities of archive documents from the Swedish National Archives and several foreign collections will be made available to research and the public in digital formats.
The digitised material and further information about the project.
Text Till Tiden 1 (Old Swedish Manuscripts) och 2 (Old Swedish Texts in Post-Medieval Manuscripts)
Stockholm University, National Library of Sweden, Uppsala University Library
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
2016–2021; 2019–2022
Common Ground
Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Swedish Institute in Rome
Finansierat av Riksbankens jubileumsfond.
År 2019–2022
Music at Court and University during Sweden’s Age of Liberty (1718–1772): a digitisation and database project
Department of Musicology, Uppsala University
Funded by the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
2020–2021
Numismatic Literature
Funded by foundations for numismatic research
2018–2021
The Library of Leufstabruk
Uppsala University Library in collaboration with the Royal Library in The Hague (the National Library of the Netherlands)
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
2018–2020
Digitisation of Older Maps in the Leufsta Bruk Archive
Brandförsäkringsverkets stiftelse för bebyggelsehistorisk forskning
Leufsta Foundation, Popular Movements Archive, Uppsala University Library
2019
Gottfried Schröer’s Album Amicorum (Y 131)
Textual strategies for self-stylisation in the 17th century Swedish nobility.
Department of Modern Languages
Tersmedens fond
2019
Joel Eriksson Photograph Collection
Photographs from his travels in Mongolia.
Funded by the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
2019
Everlasting Runes
Glass negatives, manuscripts, notebooks and other ‘rune-related’ material from the collections of von Friesen and Celsius.
Swedish National Heritage Board and Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2017–2019
The Linnaean Correspondence
Publication and storage in Alvin of large quantities of original letters to and from Carl Linnaeus. The original letters are dispersed among institutions around the world.
The project began in 1995 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and continued for some time under the auspices of the Swedish Linnaean Society before the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences finally reassumed responsibility and managed the project until its conclusion in 2019.
1995–2019
Manuscripts from the C Collection: Selected Medieval Manuscripts
Collaboration with Alamire Foundation, KU Leuven
2017
The History of Architecture before the Emergence of the History of Architecture
Department of Art History, Uppsala University.
Funded by Brandförsäkringsverkets stiftelse för bebyggelsehistorisk forskning
2017
Digitisation and Cataloguing of the Alba Amicorum at Uppsala University Library
Department of Modern Languages, Uppsala University
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
2015–2018
A Collection of French Music at the Swedish Royal Court from 1690–1726
Department of Musicology, Uppsala University
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
2014–2017
Greek Manuscripts in Sweden
Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2012–2016
Illuminated Manuscripts in Swedish Collections
Department of Art History, Uppsala University, Lund University
Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
2003–2006
