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 The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Swe ...

. Patterned after

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

, it was founded by

Lars Aronsson Lars Erik Aronsson (born 19 March 1966 in Örebro, Sweden) is a Swedish programmer and consultant, and the founder of two Swedish web sites: the free electronic book archive Project Runeberg and the Swedish language wiki Susning.nu.

and colleagues at Linköping University and began archiving Nordic-language literature in December 1992. As of 2015 it had accomplished digitization to provide graphical facsimiles of old works such as the ''

Nordisk familjebok ''Nordisk familjebok'' (, "Nordic Family Book") is a Swedish encyclopedia that was published in print from between 1876 and 1993, and that is now fully available in digital form via Project Runeberg at Linköping University. Despite their consi ...

'', and had accomplished, in whole or in part, the text extractions and copyediting of these as well as esteemed Latin works and English translations from Nordic authors, and sheet music and other texts of cultural interest.

Nature and history

Project Runeberg is a digital cultural archive initiative patterned after the English-language cultural initiative,

; it was founded by

and colleagues at Linköping University, especially within the university group Lysator (see below), with the aim of publishing free electronic versions of books significant to the culture and history of the

.Ingemar Breithel, Ed., 2015, "Posten: Projekt Runeberg" 'in Swedish''; Engl., "Entry: Project Runeberg" at '' Nationalencyklopedin'' (online encyclopedia), se

retrieved 22 April 2015. Marcus Boldemann, 2003, ""Kultur: Ugglan" hoar gratis på nätet" 'in Swedish''; Engl., Culture: "'The owl' hoots for free online" '' Dagens Nyheter'' (online), 23 April 2003, se

Retrieved 22 April 2015. The Project began archiving its first Nordic-language literature pieces (parts of the '' The Tales of Ensign Stål, Fänrik Ståls Sägner'', of Nordic dictionaries and of a Bible from 1917) in December 1992.

Name

In its naming, a moniker similar to "Gutenberg" was desired. The Project was thereby given the name of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

's national poet

Johan Ludvig Runeberg Johan Ludvig Runeberg (; 5 February 1804 – 6 May 1877) was a Finnish priest, lyric and epic poet. He wrote exclusively in Swedish. He is considered a national poet of Finland. He is the author of the lyrics to (''Our Land'', ''Maamme'' in ...

, and so contained a further allusion based on the meanings of its component parts — ''

Rune Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...

'' (letter in Runic script) and '' berg'' (mountain) — so that in most Nordic languages it can be translated loosely as "mountain of letters".

Achievements

The Project began archiving Nordic-language literature in December 1992. As of 2015 it had accomplished digitization to provide graphical facsimiles of old works such as the ''

'', and had accomplished, in whole or in part, the text extractions and copyediting of these as well as esteemed Latin works and English translations from Nordic authors – e.g., Carl August Hagberg's interpretations of Shakespeare's plays – and sheet music and other texts of cultural interest.

Technology

By 2001, technology – image scanning and optical character recognition techniques – had improved enough to allow full digitization and text extraction of important target texts, e.g., of both print editions of the ''

'' (45,000 pages). Project Runeberg is hosted by an academic computer group, Lysator, at Linköping University, in Linköping in southern

Sweden Sweden, ; fi, Ruotsi; fit, Ruotti; se, Ruoŧŧa; smj, Svierik; sje, Sverji; sju, Sverje; sma, Sveerje or ; yi, שוועדן, Shvedn; rmu, Svedikko; rmf, Sveittiko. formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic cou ...

References

External links