29.9.-30.9. järjestettiin Mikkelin I sotakirjallisuuden tapahtuma, jossa eri esiintyjät pohtivat sotatarinoita, sensuuria ja tarinoita läheltä ja kauempaakin. Tapahtumaa järjestämässä oli mm. Mikkelin kaupunki, Päämajamuseo ja muutama muu. Kiinnostavaa oli kuulla myös yleisöltä kommentteja ja omia tarinoita suhteessa esiintyjien toisesta näkökulmasta kuuluvaan tarkasteluun. Voisikin luulla, että käyttöä olisi palveluille, jossa tuotaisiin tällaista mikrohistoriaa esille, kuten https://sotapolku.fi/ palvelussa. Sensuurista kertonut Kai Ekholm, muistutti yleisölle kuinka sensuurinkin noudattamisessa oli eroja ja kuinka hyödyllistä olikin, kun sensuurin piilottamia teoksia, löytyikin uudestaan. Kai Sirviö taas kertoi kirjailijan näkökulmasta teoksistaan ja kuinka erinäisten historialähteiden avulla voi saada tarkaakin tietoa siitä, millainen sää oli, millainen maisema, ja kuinka ylipäätään nivoa yhteen sekä kirjastojen että arkistojen materiaalia, kuin myös aikalaistekstejä. Esimerkiksi mainittua tuli  http://sa-kuva.fi/ – palvelu, josta 160.000 kuvaa on Kansalliskirjaston Mikkelissä digitoimia. Käyttäjät osaavat arvostaa digitaalista palvelua arvostetaan, koska se tuo aineistot helposti saataville. Jo digitoitujen ja edes analogisesti löydettävät sota-ajan sanomalehdet, joita voi antikvaareista tai vapaakappaletyöasemilta  löytää, kuvaavat aikalaishistoriaa ja ovat esimerkiksi kirjailijoille arvokasta materiaalia, jolla taas lukijoille saadaan luotua todenmukainen maailma.

Kiinnostus teemaan oli suurta, sillä tapahtumaan oli täynnä ja osallistujissa näytti olevankin mm. paikallishistoriaa setviviä, joita osallistui mm. Kansalliskirjaston aiemmassa projektissa järjestämälle Kansalaisopiston kurssille. Kirjailija Esa Sirénin esityksessä käytiin myös laajasti läpi sitä kuinka kulttuuriperintöaineistoista voi olla apua myös kirjailijan työssä, esimerkiksi Kansalliskiraston digitoimat sa-kuvat.fi antaa maisemakuvaa, armeijan taistelukuvauksista löytyy tietoa siitä mitä tapahtui ja keitä tapahtumissa oli mukana ja lehdistä taas voi nähdä aikalaisten uutisia ja vaikka alueen säätilaa. Kaikki nämä eri aineistot yhdistämällä kokonaisuudesta saadaan rikkaampi kuin vain yhtä aineistoa käyttäen. Erityisesti tässä oli kiinnostava kontrasti ensimmäiseen alustukseen, jossa käytiin läpi kuinka sensuuri vei jopa kirjoja ja karttoja pois käytettävistä, mm. Jaltan sopimuksen myötä. Kiinnostavaa sinänsä, mitä minäkin aikana on käytettävissä ja mitä ei, kukin ihmisyhteisö voi löytää aina uusia asioita joista ei voi puhua. Näin silti, vaikka Suomi on Open Knowledge Internationalin benchmarkin sijalla 5.

National Library of Finland is also present at the world science fiction convention, which is organized in Finland this year.  The reason is that the National Library aims to present itself as a place where also science fiction fans can find books, articles, texts or other fannish material from our versatile collections. So we aim to increase awareness of the library, and especially its collections, where there are many hidden treasures. Our collected list of materials from Kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi contains books from “Finland of Books”  and from Slavica collection (e.g. in Polish and Russian) as an example. Some of the items are available for loan, but do note that some rarer items need to stay within library, to enable researchers to come and view materials on-location.

Rare collections by request

As a research library there is material available on site for special request within the reading rooms, you can see the information about these online.

National Library’s open collection available to you in the library, without a separate material request.  Our open collections are the Humanities Collection, the Slavonic Library and the Finnish National Sound Archive (the Music Library). You will need a valid Helka library card to use the materials of the open collection. (More information about open collection).

Science fiction, future, fannish material in collections

National Library’s collection contain some of the originals of the early authors, who wrote books, which nowadays can be seen as science fiction, which are available by pre-request in the reading room.  Some of these  books has also been digitized, which  include for example Volter Kilpi’s (1874-1939) (info) “Gulliverin matka Fantomimian mantereelle”.  In digital format also K. A. Tavastjärna’s “Finska vikens hemlighet” was published on 1895 and “Det gråa slotten” by A. I. Ingelius  on 1851 preceded even that.

 

Gradually more and more science fiction, fantasy has got more and more ground. You can find our selections from science fiction era from custom list from Finna. The list contains books from different eras, like few books from the “Finland of Books” project as part of the Finland’s centennial celebrations.

 

Collaborations

 

Finnish Institute of London created a site to celebrate digital cultural heritage and Finnish-British relations, together with several memory organizations, where National Library was one. In the science fiction list, there is therefore also author Emmi Itäranta tells about her writing process and connection to London in the project interview. Read more about “Tales of Two Countries” at  http://taleoftwocountries.fi/

 

Future, expectations in the digitized newspapers

In digitized newspapers, future or speculative fiction occurs in shorter articles or even as translated novels, which has appeared either in newspapers or journals. Our digitized collection contains roughly 11,5 million page, where around 3 million is available online for everyone. Future or science fiction has also acquired some following in the clippings, which the users can do, and there are around 100 clippings in both material types, ranging from speculations of climate change to the articles about the technological advances. You can find bit more about the “future” article clippings from this previous post.

 

Digitized in-copyright material is available in the legal deposit libraries in Finland, like in the National Library, Unioninkatu 36, next to Senate Square where with the same web system you can read newspapers as the digitization progresses. We hope that WorldCon 2017 participants would have time to visit National Library’s main building, where students and researchers from Finland and abroad work and find material for their research.

 

Feel free to follow us at the https://www.facebook.com/Kansalliskirjasto/   or in Twitter @natlibfi

 

P.S. After WorldCon75 , Digitalia summer school starts on 16.8.  https://www.xamk.fi/kesakoulu/ where the target is to go deeper in to the management of digital materials.

 

 

How has the future been discussed back in the day, in the 19th and 20th century? Based on a quick word frequency chart, it seems that the peak has been in the early 20th century, increasing as also the pages of the newspapers of the time.

Actually first mention for the future was already in 1774, in a book review and few individual mentions until roughly around year 1870 the term started to appear more.

Within the wake of the World Science Fiction convention in Helsinki on 9.8.-13.8.2017 we also checked how the science fiction or future topics have appeared in the user-collected clippings. It is not the largest collection of themes, but anyhow contains various topics of interest.  In newspapers there are 90 clippings with regard future or scifi and user found items in the journals is 11 with ‘tulevaisuus’ or 18 with ‘tuleva*’ search word , so there would be lots more to be found.

Especially in journals there are more longer articles, and e.g. this one particular which looks at the future where newspapers and even milk is delivered to home via air transport is quite accurate.

also National Library is among the displayers in the Worldcon, aiming to give a glimpse to a convention to the collections also from the science fiction perspective. Science fiction (or future) themes can be found from books, digitized newspapers, and even in other collections. Via Finna search service you can find naturally science fiction books, where we made a listing from throughout the years. There are even some newer Finland of Books items listed, which are freely available for read until end of the year. List includes also firsts science fiction book, “Gulliverin matka Fantomimian mantereelle” by Volter Kilpi or  and K.A. Tavastjärna’s “Finska vikens hemlighet”. If you have your own favorite science fiction list, please feel free to create your own list in Finna. At http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi  , there you can do your own searches regarding future or any other topic of interest, from the digitized newspapers. All searches can be used without logging in, but if you want to create clippings then login with your social media account and create clippings of the area of your interest.

In the Worldcon75 there is also academic track, where there are literature discussion and e.g. viewing how science fiction is in China. Within selection of  20 talks, there is lots of options choose on different days, session details online.

P.S. do remember that  summer school of Digitalia is on 16.8.-18.8, more about that later on.

 

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During recent Liber-seminar, libraries working with the Digital Humanities topics had a joint workshop. Based on the storify storyline below, there were presentations about the current state of digital humanities to the future. British Library’s extensive collections and Norway’s case of having all books digitized were presented among others who have personnel in R&D and various kinds of digitization projects ongoing. It seems that DH is finding its spot in the libraries and enables collaboration between researchers to deepen. It is possible to monitor the work group work via the homepage of the group in the Liber website.

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