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( Icelandic: ; English: ''The National and University Library of Iceland'') is the
national library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, ...
of
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
which also functions as the
university library An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution, which supports the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are an es ...
of the
University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern co ...
. The library was established on 1 December 1994 in
Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...
,
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
, with the merger of the former national library, Landsbókasafn Íslands (est. 1818), and the university library (formally est. 1940). It is the largest library in Iceland with about one million items in various collections. The library's largest collection is the national collection containing almost all written works published in Iceland and items related to Iceland published elsewhere. The library is the main
legal deposit Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their publications to a repository, usually a library. The number of copies required varies from country to country. Typically, the national library is the primary reposit ...
library in Iceland. The library also has a large
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
collection with mostly early modern and modern manuscripts, and a collection of published Icelandic music and other audio (legal deposit since 1977). The library houses the largest academic collection in Iceland, most of which can be borrowed for off-site use by holders of library cards. University students get library cards for free, but anyone can acquire a card for a small fee. The library is open for public access. The library main building is called Þjóðarbókhlaðan . It is a prominent red and white building near the main campus of the University of Iceland and the
National Museum of Iceland The National Museum of Iceland ( Icelandic: ''Þjóðminjasafn Íslands'' ) was established on 24 February 1863, with Jón Árnason the first curator of the Icelandic collection, previously kept in Danish museums. Collections The second curat ...
. The building took 16 years to complete, finally opening in 1994, the year of the Icelandic republic's 50th anniversary.


History

The first national library of Iceland, ''Íslands stiftisbókasafn'', was established at the instigation of Danish antiquarian
Carl Christian Rafn Carl Christian Rafn (January 16, 1795 – October 20, 1864) was a Danish historian, translator and antiquarian. His scholarship to a large extent focused on translation of Old Norse literature and related Northern European ancient history. He w ...
and the
Icelandic Literary Society The Icelandic Literary Society (), founded in 1816, is an organization dedicated to promoting and strengthening Icelandic language Icelandic ( ; , ) is a North Germanic languages, North Germanic language from the Indo-European languages, Indo-E ...
in 1818, and the first books of the library were gifts from Icelanders and Danes. From 1825, the library was housed in the loft of the newly renovated Reykjavík Cathedral. In 1848, the first national librarian, folklorist Jón Árnason, was hired to manage it. In 1847, the manuscript collection was started with the purchase of a large collection of manuscripts from the estate of bishop
Steingrímur Jónsson Steingrímur Jónsson (14 August 1769 - 14 June 1845) was an Icelandic prelate who served as the second Bishop of Iceland from 1824 till 1845. Biography He studied in the school of the Diocese of Skálholt and then in Reykjavík in 1788. He als ...
. On the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the
settlement of Iceland The settlement of Iceland ( ) is generally believed to have begun in the second half of the ninth century, when Norsemen, Norse settlers migrated across the North Atlantic. The reasons for the migration are uncertain: later in the Middle Ages Icel ...
in 1874 the library received many gifts. In 1883, Jón Árnason estimated the total number of volumes in the library at 20,000. In 1881, the library moved into the new house of parliament, Alþingishús, and in 1886, the first Icelandic print law establishing the library as a legal deposit library was passed by the
Alþingi The (; ), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest surviving parliament in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at (' thing fields' or 'assembly fields'), about east of what la ...
. After this, the library grew fast and on its 100th anniversary in 1918, it counted 100,000 volumes. In 1906–1908, a special building, '' Safnahúsið'', was erected to house the National Library, the National Museum, the Icelandic National Archives, and the Icelandic Natural History Museum. The library of the University of Iceland was formally established in 1940 when the university moved into the Main Building. Before that time the individual departments had their own libraries. At the time it was debated whether it was practical to develop two academic state libraries in Iceland. In 1947, a committee was established to decide on a division of tasks between them. Soon, a merger of the two libraries was proposed. In 1956 and 1966, two committees were set up to prepare for this eventuality. It seemed clear that a new specially designed building close to the university would be required. The idea was that this new library building, ''Þjóðarbókhlaðan'', would be opened in 1974 on the 1100th anniversary of the settlement of Iceland. The two libraries began working towards this end and
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
library experts were consulted as to the requirements of the new building. As the year 1974 drew near it became increasingly clear, however, that the Icelandic state would not be able to construct the building in time. The
1973 Oil Crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...
, among other things, resulted in a worsening of the state's finances meaning that most of the ideas for the anniversary year had to be significantly reduced or scrapped. A
groundbreaking Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod, turf-cutting, or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures that celebrates the first day of construction for a building or other project. Such cer ...
ceremony for the new library was planned, instead of an inauguration, but even this was postponed until 1978 when construction finally began. Initially the building project proceeded and in 1983 the building was complete on the outside. However, significant funds were needed to complete the interior and for the next ten years the large building stood empty. Attempts were made to finance its completion with a special supplement on property tax, but most of that income was used for other expenses. Finally in 1991, the new government of Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn and Alþýðuflokkurinn made it a priority to complete the building, and on 1 December 1994 it opened. While a lot of debate surrounded the building of ''Þjóðarbókhlaðan'' at the time, it resulted in vastly improved consultation, study and research facilities for researchers, university students and the general public in Iceland. The combination of the two libraries in one building resulted in an accessible library where users have direct access to the academic collection and reference works on the shelves while the national and manuscript collections are available for on-site consultation in a separate reading hall. From 1888 to 1979, the National Library published a list of new books acquired each year. In 1979, this was replaced by the
Icelandic National Bibliography Icelandic refers to anything of, from, or related to Iceland and may refer to: *Icelandic people *Icelandic language *Icelandic orthography *Icelandic cuisine See also * Icelander (disambiguation) * Icelandic Airlines, a predecessor of Icelandai ...
, containing an overview of Icelandic published books each year. In October 1991, the two libraries implemented a joint
online public access catalog The online public access catalog (OPAC), now frequently synonymous with ''library catalog'', is an online database of materials held by a library or group of libraries. Online catalogs have largely replaced the analog card catalogs previously ...
system, Gegnir, gradually replacing the card catalogs. Since 2001, this system has been implemented nationwide for all public libraries in Iceland and is managed by a consortium. As of 2008, Gegnir can also be consulted via the
European Library The European Library was an Internet service that allows access to the resources of 49 European national libraries and an increasing number of research libraries. Searching is free and delivers metadata records as well as digital objects, mostl ...
. Since 1996 the library has engaged in several large digitisation projects providing open access to antique maps of Iceland (1998): Timarit.is – journals and newspapers (2002 in collaboration with the National Library of the Faroe Islands and the National Library of Greenland) –, Handrit.is – a catalog and digital library of manuscripts (in collaboration with the
Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies ( ; abbreviated to ) is a university-level institute, which operates on an independent budget under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education. The institute fost ...
and the Arnamagnæan Institute) –, and the online Icelandic National Bibliography (2008) among others. The library signed the
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities is an international statement on open access and access to knowledge. It emerged from a conference on open access hosted in the Harnack House in Berlin by the Max P ...
in September 2012.


Administration and roles

The roles of the National and University Library are defined with a special law dating from 2011 and related regulations. The library is defined as an independent higher education institution under the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture which commissions the library board, consisting of seven members, and the National Librarian. Administratively the library is divided into five sections; conservation, services, communication, acquisitions and administration. The section heads form the library executive board, along with the National Librarian. The library has the duty to collect and catalog all published Icelandic print, electronic and audio material for preservation and continued access. It is to manage its extensive manuscript collection and ensure the continued conservation of all the materials it collects. The library collects materials partly through receiving the legal deposit from publishers and partly through acquisitions and gifts. The legal deposit is defined in a special law dating from 2001 where the collection of electronic material published on the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
is defined as being one of the tasks of the library. Currently, the library collects snapshots of all web pages within the Icelandic
top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...
.is using the
Heritrix Heritrix is a web crawler designed for web archiving. It was written by the Internet Archive. It is available under a free software license and written in Java (programming language), Java. The main interface is accessible using a web browser, an ...
web crawler. The library is the
ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase or receive ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. A different ISBN is assigned to e ...
and
ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit to uniquely identify a periodical publication (periodical), such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...
national center in Iceland. It is also the national center for interlibrary loans. It has the role of coordinator for the national OPAC, Gegnir. The library has the duty to provide information and library service to the general public. It has a special duty to support the needs of teaching and research at the University of Iceland. The library manages subscriptions to scientific databases and
electronic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scr ...
s for the university and administers the office for national access to
bibliographic database A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records. This is an organised online collection of references to published written works like academic journal, journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government an ...
s and electronic journals, hvar.is, jointly financed by the Icelandic state and a consortium of Icelandic libraries, schools and research institutions and companies.


Collections


Reference section

The reference section of the library contains reference works, manuals, encyclopedias, dictionaries and bibliographic registries etc. for on-site consultation. Within the reference section there are also computers for consulting the OPAC and for general use by guests. As these are part of the Internet of the University of Iceland, they have access to all electronic reference works that the university subscribes to in addition to the library subscriptions. The same applies to the wireless Internet hotspot available in the whole building. Part of the collection of reference works is available in the reading hall of the national and manuscript collections.


National collection

The national collection comprises all Icelandic published material in print, electronic or audiographic form collected through the legal deposit or acquired by other means. The library actively collects materials relating to Iceland published elsewhere and not subject to the Icelandic law on legal deposit. This equally applies to materials published online. This way, the library has created the most complete collection of Icelandic materials available anywhere in the world which it conserves, stores and makes available for on-site use in a special reading hall it shares with the manuscript collections. Access to highly valuable and rare items is restricted, but the library usually tries to make these available through its
digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include ...
production line. Within the national collection there are some private collections of individuals that are stored separately.


Manuscript collections

The library manuscript collections contain some 15,000 items, the oldest vellum manuscripts dating from around 1100 and are among the earliest examples of written Icelandic. Most of the collections are paper manuscripts, the oldest ones dating from the end of the 16th century. The youngest items are collections of manuscripts and letters, including electronic materials, from contemporary people which include some of Iceland's most prominent literary figures such as
Halldór Laxness Halldór Kiljan Laxness (; born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and sh ...
. The manuscript collections of the library can be consulted in a separate reading hall where the items are provided by request for on-site use. Some of the manuscripts are cataloged in registers which are available in digital form on the library website. The library is currently working on creating an online catalog for manuscripts jointly with the
Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies ( ; abbreviated to ) is a university-level institute, which operates on an independent budget under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education. The institute fost ...
in Reykjavík and the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen.


Audiovisual collection

The audiovisual collection of the library is available for on-site use using special facilities, screens and headphones, provided by the library. The collection includes materials that are part of the national collection as well as a large collection of international materials, records, films, television programs etc. The main emphasis of the collection, however, is to collect all Icelandic material and make it available to library guests.


Academic collection

The bulk of the academic collection consists of materials from the original library of the University of Iceland. It contains international scientific works and textbooks along with literary works in many languages, including a large collection of translations of Icelandic literature. By request, the library reserves textbooks used in courses taught at the University of Iceland to ensure that they are available for on-site study. Most of the academic collection, however, can be borrowed for off-site use by holders of library cards issued by the library. Students at the University of Iceland get such cards for free. Parts of the collection are available in two library branches on campus.


See also

*
Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies ( ; abbreviated to ) is a university-level institute, which operates on an independent budget under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education. The institute fost ...
* Handrit.is * Timarit.is *
University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern co ...
* Skemman.is


References


External links


The National and University Library of Iceland

Gegnir – catalog of Icelandic libraries
* {{Authority control Libraries in Iceland
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
Academic libraries University of Iceland 1994 establishments in Iceland Buildings and structures in Reykjavík Culture in Reykjavík Libraries established in 1994 Deposit libraries Library buildings completed in 1983