Swedish ephemera
Read about our ephemera collection, and how to find and access uncatalogued printed items here.
The ephemera collection is placed in closed stacks, and items need to be requsted in advance.
Contents of the ephemera collection
Printed items with historical and political content, from labour unions, advertisements, school catalogues, annual reports, historical tariffs, information material from departments and organisations, etc. This kind of material, however useless and unimportant it may seem in the eyes of contemporary people, is often a most valuable source material in historical research, since they mirror events and epochs in society during several centuries.
The material has usually not been catalogued, and therefore it cannot be retrieved in LIBRIS, DISA, or any other catalogue of the library.
The material is stored in capsules according to subject, and these are usually located in connection with the catalogued series.
Catalogues or price lists from Swedish mail order businesses.
Access the ephemera
When ordering it is important to give as adequate information and sources as possible. An order of uncatalogued printed material is taken care of by a group at the library performing investigations in the collections. These investigations are time-consuming, and one must expect to have to wait up to one week before ordered material is available to the user.
The material can usually only be ordered to and read at the Special Reading Room at Carolina Rediviva. If you would like to request items from the ephemera collection, please contact the information at Carolina Rediviva, or send an e-mail to ask.library@ub.uu.se.
How did the Library acquire its ephemera collection?
According to laws from the end of the 17th century, Uppsala University Library should receive legal deposits, which means that the Library over the years have received great amounts of legal deposits from printing houses and editors.
In the collection we can thus find printed items from very old times and onwards, but we can only supply the users of the library with material printed before 1962. The uncatalogued collection from the period 1963-1999 is not available at present. Material printed after 2000 is saved to a much lesser extent.
