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''Nordisk familjebok'' (, "Nordic Family Book") is a
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
that was published in print from between 1876 and 1993, and that is now fully available in digital form via
Project Runeberg Project Runeberg ( sv, Projekt Runeberg) is a digital cultural archive initiative that publishes free electronic versions of books significant to the culture and history of the Nordic countries. Patterned after Project Gutenberg, it was founded ...
at
Linköping University Linköping University (, LiU) is a public research university based in Linköping, Sweden. Originally established in 1969, it was granted full university status in 1975 and is one of Sweden's largest academic institutions. The university has fou ...
. Despite their considerable age and relative obsolescence, the public domain editions of the encyclopedia remain important reference works in Finland, especially on
Finnish Wikipedia The Finnish Wikipedia ( fi, Suomenkielinen Wikipedia) is the edition of Wikipedia in the Finnish language. By article count, it is the largest Wikipedia with about articles as of . Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia in Finnish which is still up ...
.


History


First edition

''Nordisk familjebok'' began when
Halmstad Halmstad () is a port, university, industrial and recreational city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Socia ...
publisher hired an editor, linguist , in 1874 to publish a six-volume encyclopedia. Linder drew up a plan for the work, designed the editorial team and created a large circle of experts and literary figures, who submitted article proposals and wrote and reviewed them. Under Linder's direction, the articles were then edited to make them as formal, consistent and accurate as possible. Much attention was paid to Nordic subjects, mainly Swedish and Finnish, where sources and models were often lacking, so extensive and time-consuming pioneering work had to be done. As a result, the earlier plan for the scope and publication period of the work was soon abandoned. The first edition of ''Nordisk familjebok'' was published in 20 volumes between 1876 and 1899, and is known as the "Idun edition" because it bears a picture of Idun, the Norse mythologic goddess of spring and rejuvenation, on its cover. This was published over almost a quarter of a century, and particularly the first ten volumes contain material which are not seen in later editions. A good example of this is found in the end of the
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
article (which is included in the second volume, from 1878), where the author finishes his article by talking about the public decency and morality, which he finds to be very poor. The author continues by complaining about there being a very lazy interest in religious matters and concludes: "to all these joint circumstances, one can hardly defend oneself against the thought of future threatening dangers".Last 8-9 lines in the right column (322) Just before article on "Berlin, Nils Johan" http://runeberg.org/nfab/0169.html ("Berlin" or "Bärlin" is a Swedish family name) Linder was editor until 1880, when he was succeeded by
lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoreti ...
, first archivist at the National Archives , and B. F. Olsson.


Second edition

The second edition, popularly known as ''Uggleupplagan'' ("The
Owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
Edition") because of an owl image on its cover, was published between 1904 and 1926 in 38 volumes, and is the most comprehensive encyclopedia published in the Swedish language. A number of articles on
Swedish Wikipedia The Swedish Wikipedia ( sv, Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia) is the Swedish-language edition of Wikipedia and was started on the 23 of May 2001. It is currently the largest Wikipedia by article count with its current articles, it has a ''Wikipedia ...
, over 20,000, are based on this edition.


Third edition

The third edition had 17 volumes and was published between 1924 and 1937. Another three supplementary volumes were published in 1937, 1938 and in 1939. The supplement covers for instance the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
and a heavy update on
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, but nothing about Germany's war on Poland nor are later events mentioned. A second printing of the entire third edition was published between 1941 and 1944. Nothing essential is changed in the second printing, but quite a lot of one side portraits (still in black and white), coloured maps of "World cities", European countries, continents, Swedish provinces and cities are added together with a few topics, like a collection of national flags. All the added material are on unnumbered pages, presumably a technical printing solution (so already printed books did not require re-numbering). This edition is usually called "the 1930s edition" and are of brown colour when looking at them on a shelf.


Fourth edition

In 1942, Svensk uppslagsbok AB (later Förlagshuset Norden AB), the same publishing house that published the competing '' Svensk uppslagsbok'', took over the rights to ''Nordisk familjebok'' and published a fourth, highly concentrated edition in 22 volumes between 1951 and 1957.


Fifth edition

The fifth edition, ''Nordisk familijebook 1994'', was published in 1993 by in both a hardcopy, consisting of only two volumes, and a CD-ROM edition. According to the preface, it was based on the second edition of the larger work '.
Copyrights A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
on the three first versions have expired, putting them in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
; while the fourth and fifth editions, from the 1950s and 1990s, respectively, are still under copyright.


See also

* ''
Nationalencyklopedin ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia, initiated by a favourable loan from the Government of Sweden of 17 million Swedish kronor in 19 ...
''


References


External links


Lars Aronsson's preface to the 2003 Digital Edition
accessed 22 April 2015.
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's_two_digital_editions_of_the_''Nordisk_familjebok''_(45,000_pages)_accessed_22_April_2015. {{Use_dmy_dates.html" ;"title="Project Runeberg
's two digital editions of the ''Nordisk familjebok'' (45,000 pages)">Project Runeberg"> Project Runeberg
's two digital editions of the ''Nordisk familjebok'' (45,000 pages) accessed 22 April 2015. {{Use dmy dates">date=April 2017 Swedish encyclopedias Reference works in the public domain Swedish culture 1874 non-fiction books 1904 non-fiction books 1924 non-fiction books 19th-century encyclopedias 20th-century encyclopedias