Carolina Rediviva – books and history in the exhibition hall

Carolina Rediviva’s exhibition hall displays a selection from the Library’s collections, which have been collected over a period of 400 years. The content of the exhibitions changes from time to time. But the Codex argenteus, one of the world’s most famous illuminated manuscripts, and the 1539 Carta marina, the first map that showed the Nordic countries relatively correctly, are always there to see.

Survived the Great Fire

Uppsala University Library is over 400 years old. Its collections have moved to different buildings over that period, and are always growing. Gustav II Adolf founded the Library in 1620, when he also donated a book collection that included the remnants of the medieval Swedish monastery library as well as some confiscated libraries. Over the years, the Library’s collections were also expanded with the spoils of war. In the 1690s, the Library moved into Gustavianum. That turned out to be a very lucky move, because Gustavianum survived the Great Fire of 1702 when almost all of Uppsala burned down.

In 1841, the Library moved into Carolina Rediviva, which was newly built at the time. But the collections continued to grow over the years and the first renovations of Carolina Rediviva were completed as early as the 1880s. In the 1900s, the Library’s collections grew again through a number of donations when many major bibliophiles donated their collections to the Library. A lack of space soon became apparent, and a system of book repositories was added.

Valuable special collections

Uppsala University Library holds many valuable, special collections. These include printed collections, but also manuscripts, archives, sheet music, images, maps and photographs. Everyone is welcome to study these special collections, either on site in the Library’s special reading room or online. Much of the material from the special collections has been digitalised and published in the database Alvin.

Ulrika Hurtig