About us
Working with the Special Collections of the Gothenburg University Library involves acquisition, administration and organisation of donations, as well as the creation of inventories, cataloguing, conservation and collection care. Beyond our new acquisitions, we also maintain a wide approach to the retroactive work with our extant collections.
Working with archives and manuscripts
The archivists’ work is both scientific and administrative, and includes the investigation and assessment of which documents to preserve in an archive, as well as the organisation, inventory and care of the archival materials. Archives consist mainly of written documents – analogue as well as digital – such as manuscripts, letters, diaries and minutes, but may come in other forms as well, such as photographs. The main purpose is to preserve information that may be valuable for research purposes, now and in the future. Our archivists also provide advise and service to the patrons and visitors of the University Library.
Cataloguing
The cataloguing of our holdings is constantly underway, including not just newly acquired materials but retroactively of old titles too. Large portions of the university library holdings are significantly older than the library itself, and can be browsed only in manual card catalogues, some of which have been scanned and made available online. The majority of our older collections are catalogued in physical card catalogues, with index cards that are either typewritten or handwritten. Some of our collections are not catalogued at all. Book by book, we enter their records in the national Swedish library system, Libris, and in our local online catalogue, Supersearch.
Cataloguing requires extensive knowledge of, among other things, language, culture, history and social sciences. In order to correctly describe the contents of a book, and by extension that of a collection, it is vital to understand its topics, context and background.
Read more about cataloguing
Bookbinding
Originally, bookbinding was the craft of joining handwritten or printed pages to form a book. These days, the bookbinder’s workshop at the University Library deals mainly with mending books – both bodies and covers, which may be made from a diverse range of materials depending on the age of the book. In addition, the workshop mends manuscripts and many other items from our collections. The work requires a wide range of skills not least concerning various materials and mending techniques, both historical and modern.
Conservation
Conservation of cultural historical items and art objects mainly involves work that aims to prevent and slow down the decomposition of the physical material. It may also involve careful restoration of an object.
Conservation work at the University Library is largely preventative, and includes providing support and advise in connection with the relocation of books and collections, as well as monitoring the climate in our various facilities. In this way, we minimise the risk of pests and mildew issues. In some cases, the conservators clean the materials, or ensure their preservation in other ways. More specific tasks may concern, for example, the handling of books dyed with toxic pigments (mainly arsenic).
The library is actively co-operating with the Department of Conservation at the University of Gothenburg, both regarding research and education. Particular care is awarded materials such as parchment. We regularly receive students from the department as trainees.
Conservation work at the University Library aims to make our collections available, and to secure, long-term, their preservation.
On cultural heritage conservation via Wikipedia.
Digitisation
Digitising the library collections to make them available is one of the ongoing tasks of the library. Our work includes making digital copies of various types of material, such as books, magazines, posters, photos, postcards and manuscripts. The selection of materials to digitise is determined by requests, projects and our own selection guidelines.
Digitisation work begins with each work being scanned or photographed in high resolution, in its entirety, from cover to cover. The focus lies on making the text as readable as possible, and the process involves great care and precision to include details such as notes, stamps and watermarks. When choosing which functions to include in the scanning process, we consider the type and characteristics of the material.
The library seeks to safeguard high-quality digital copying, and adheres to international standards for image capture.
The digitised material is published through the Gothenburg University publications database, GUPEA, or through Alvin, a platform for publication of digital cultural heritage materials.
Request digital copies from the collections
Find digital materials in GUPEA
Find digital materials in Alvin
Digitisation or digitalisation?
You have probably come across these two notions, and it may be useful to know they are not synonymous.
Digitisation means you start with a physical or analogue material, to create a digital copy. This might involve creating a PFD from a paper original, or transfer sound from a cassette tape to an Mp3 file. Digitisation refers only to this conversion from one format to another. Nothing is really added to the material, though a measure of metadata extraction often occurs: you might state the title, author, year etc, in order to make the material retrievable through a database or similar.
Digitalisation can be a lot of different things, but it generally means that you will also add information, functions or other data made available through the digital format. In this way you might develop or alter the material, or make it more available or adaptable. Digitalisation often brings new functionality or efficiency.
