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 Sw ...

. 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 libr ...

, 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 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 ...

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 co ...

'', 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

, 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 ''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 1 ...

'' (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 ''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record. History and profile ' ...

'' (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 Bot ...

'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 F ...

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

Rune Runes are the 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, and for specialised ...

'' (letter in Runic script) and ''

berg Berg may refer to: People *Berg (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Berg Ng (born 1960), Hong Kong actor * Berg (footballer) (born 1989), Brazilian footballer Former states * Berg (state), county and duchy of the Hol ...

'' (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 Carl August Hagberg (7 July 1810 – 9 January 1864), was a Swedish linguist and translator. He was a member of the Swedish Academy, occupying a seat from 1851 until his death. He was the son of Carl Peter Hagberg. Hagberg is most famous for be ...

's interpretations of Shakespeare's plays – and sheet music and other texts of cultural interest.

Technology

By 2001, technology –

image scanning An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' w ...

and

optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a sc ...

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

, in

Linköping Linköping () is a city in southern Sweden, with around 105,000 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Church ...

in southern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

References

External links