Book History Up North

Closing the Blog

2010-09-16T15:55:00.003+03:00

Jyrki Hakapää

This blog was created a bit more than a year ago to precede Book Culture from Below – The Eighteenth Annual SHARP Conference. The conference took place in Helsinki, 17-20 August 2010. For organizers of the conference, it was a splendid occasion, filled with interesting presentations and lively discussions.

The conference webpage is still available for viewing. The program of the conference and the abstracts of the presentations are presented at Scientific Program page. Reviews and articles about the conference are collected to the Press page. Pictures of the conference are presented at the conference flickr photostream. Finally, tweets related to the conference have been saved here (#sharp10) and here (#sharp2010). Three events of the conference were also webcasted, but they were not recorded for later viewing.

But now it is time to close the blog: thank you for following Book History Up North and Book Culture from Below. The editors are very happy that so many readers found this blog. Book history is a growing scientific field in Nordic countries, and we are looking forward to see how the current discussions and findings evolve to new publications and meetings.

Book Culture from Below - The 18th Annual SHARP Conference

2010-08-10T13:40:00.002+03:00

Jyrki Hakapää

Book Culture from Below - The 18th Annual SHARP Conference will begin next week in Helsinki, Finland. We are thrilled to have almost 250 scholars arriving to Helsinki. Many book historians can not attend the conference, but there are various ways of following the conference online, too.

The full program and abstracts of the conference are now available at the conference website's program page.

Three events of the conference will be webcast. All feeds will be linked to the conference website. All webcasts will be shown live and will not be available for later viewing.

The events to be webcast are:

Wed 18th of August 2010, 15.45–17.15 Finnish time, 12.45-14.15 GMT
University of Helsinki, Porthania, P1 Grand Lecture Hall
General panel discussion: Conceptual Re-evaluations from below
Chair: Dr. Ian Gadd (Bath Spa University)
Discussants: Doc. Anna Kuismin (University of Helsinki), Prof. Jonathan Rose (Drew University), Prof. Johan Svedjedal (Uppsala University), Prof. Nils-Erik Villstrand (Åbo Akademi University)

Thu 19th of August 2010, 16.00–17.30 Finnish time, 13.00-14.30 GMT
University of Helsinki, Porthania, P1 Grand Lecture Hall
Keynote lecture: Exposing the Oral and Literary Background of Fairy Tales
Chair: Doc. Kirsti Salmi-Niklander (University of Helsinki)
Key note lecture by Prof. Ruth B. Bottigheimer (Stony Brook University): Upward and Outward: Fairy Tales and Popular, Print, and Proletarian Culture 1550–1850
Comments by Prof. Satu Apo (University of Helsinki) and Dr. Caroline Sumpter (Queen's University, Belfast)

Fri 20th of August, 16.00–17.30 Finnish time, 13.00-14.30 GMT
University of Helsinki, University Main Building, Grand Festive Hall
General panel discussion: How the Aspect ‘from below' Changes Book History
Chair: Prof. Outi Merisalo
Discussants: Doc. Esko M. Laine (University of Helsinki), Doc. Tuomas M.S. Lehtonen (Finnish Literature Society), Dr. Ann Steiner (Lund University), Dr. Jonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh)

You can also follow and discuss about the conference events via Twitter. The tag for the SHARP 2010 conference in Helsinki is #sharp10. The conference tweets can be found via link on the conference webpage.

Nordic and Baltic Book History Cooperation

2010-07-06T13:53:00.004+03:00

Before the SHARP conference in Helsinki, Gothenburg will host The World Library and Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference and Assemble, in 10-15 August 2010.

The massive event includes also sessions on library history. For one of these sessions, docent Ilkka Mäkinen (University of Tampere) has written a presentation of HIBOLIRE (Nordic-Baltic-Russian Research Network on the History of Books, Libraries and Reading), one of the co-organizers of Book Culture from Below -conference. HIBOLIRE has been active since 2006, but it is a dircet continuation of Nordic book history cooperation since 1990s. The network is funded by Nordforsk until the end of 2010.

HIBOLIRE has arranged and co-organized multiple seminars and conferences in Nordic and Baltic countries and supported young researchers' training and academic careers. The researchers of the network have also published a book last year, called Library Spirit in the Nordic and Baltic Countries: Historical Perspectives. The articles of the book concentrate on studying the idea of public library: how the idea of library, which would open its doors to all readers, spread in the Baltic Sea Region region and what kind of local ideologies, institutional varieties and networks were created.

In his IFLA presentation, Mäkinen does not only introduce various activities of the HIBOLIRE network, but also discusses on the possiblities and difficulties of the international scientific co-operation. The effort to bind eight distinct national research traditions and varying institutional support under one umbrella of book history has certainly been difficult, but discussions on the methodological issues, transnational research approaches and comparative aspects have offered common basis for cooperation.

Mäkinen's whole report is available here.

Digitized Dissertations of the Royal Academy of Turku

2010-05-26T16:03:00.005+03:00

A good amount of the dissertations defended at the Royal Academy of Turku 1642-1828 have been digitized and published at the Doria-database.

The Academy was the second university established in the Swedish realm. Until 1828 it was the only centre of academic learning in Finland. After Turku burnt in 1827, and as the Russian authorities who have annexed Finland to Russian empire in 1809 wanted to release the ties to Swedish tradition, the university moved to Helsinki.

While the academy resided in Turku, almost 4500 dissertation were defended there. A list of the dissertations was published in early 1960s, and now all 1778 dissertations printed in Latin or Swedish - ca. 45 000 pages - have been digitized. The work will continue in near future. The earliest dissertations were published mostly in Latin, but during the 18th century Swedish - the mother tongue of learned people also in Finland - was used more frequently.

Dissertations were quite frequently written by the supervisor: the young defendant's task was to show, that he was capable to discuss about the subject of the dissertation and defend its findings. As a result, many dissertations are works of proven scholars. The collection includes for example dissertations guided by Pehr Kalm, who became famous in the 18th century for his travel books of North America.

The Most Beautiful Book of Finland in 2009

2010-04-21T15:54:00.003+03:00

While we are preparing our next entry about the latest achievements of Finnish book history, we would like to show you the most beautiful book of the year.

This year The Finnish Book Arts Committee chose Amour unit deux coeurs - Henry Lönnforsin miniatyyrikokoelma, Henry Lönnfors miniatyrsamling as the main prize winner. The book introduces Henry Lönnfors' collection of miniature paintings, which he donated to the Turku Art Museum in 2004. The collection was exhibited for the first time last year. Most of the miniature paintings are Swedish works from the late 18th century and early 19th century, but the collection contains also several central European miniatures from the 17th century to the 19th century.

The Finnish Book Arts Committee announces that it seeks to "focus attention on books as art objects. In selecting the year´s most beautiful books, the committee looks for works that integrate content and design as well as possible. The criteria span the book´s graphic design as a whole, starting with the typography and ending with the complete printed product. The committee appreciates both the classic printing arts and fresh, new creative ideas." This time the committee praised, among other things, how both old and new techniques had been used successfully to create the book, and how the book as an object had been created on the content's terms.

Mapping Stars

2010-03-15T20:22:00.003+02:00

Exhibitions on book history are relatively rare in Finland, but the National Library of Finland makes a great exception: a continuous flow of exhibitions on books and and their writers, producers, and readers is one of its most visible activities. During the renovation of late 1990s the National Library opened new exhibition rooms and has ever since shown its own treasures as well as invited scholars and book collectors to show their wide learning and special collections.

The current main exhibition in the Gallery of the library is The View From Paradise. The History of the Maps of the Heavens. The exhibition shows the history of viewing, illustrating and mapping of heavens from Antiquity to the present day from the scientific, cultural and historical perspectives. The exhibition was planned by professor Tapio Markkanen, and the event belongs to the activities of the International Year of Astronomy (2009).

The exhibition displays treasures from the National Library’s collections. Many of the maps come from the Nordenskiöld Collection. This collection is probably the most famous collection of the library. Scientist and explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (1832–1901) collected thousands of maps (mostly historical), geographical literature and travel books, and nowadays the collection is inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.

The exhibition is divided in three parts: first it shows the development of astronomy from the Antiquity to the Renaissance. The oldest works displayed date from the late 15th century. Ptolemy's Almagest was the key title for astronomical information until the explorations ond scientific works of Tycho Brahe and Nikolaus Copernicus – also shown at the exhibition – changed the view. The exhibition also show important books which moulded people's understanding but have since been forgotten: Alessandro Piccolomini is presented as one of the early writers to popularize astronomy in the 16th century.

The second part of the exhibition belongs to star cataloguing, and shows Finnish scholars at their work. Finland had its own place in the global research networks since the 18th century, when French scientist Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis traveled to North of Finland to measure a degree of latitude along a line of longitude to investigate whether the earth was flattened at its poles. During the early 19th century Finnish astronomers began to participate in the international mapping efforts. But all was not professional: also hobbyists’ star atlases and guidebooks from the 1800s to the present day are also shown.

Finally the exhibitions shows pieces of traditional equipment as well as pictures of the University of Helsinki Observatory, built in 1834. The Department of Astronomy used the observatory until last year.

The View from Paradise closes at the end of April. Soon after, the library will open a new exhibition What could kill the Book. The Book Now and in the Future in the gallery. In the Rotunda the library is also preparing to open an exhibition on Kalevala, the Finnish national epic which was first published 175 years ago. Both will be open during SHARP's annual conference in August.

Book Science Conference in Vilnius

2010-02-03T14:45:00.000+02:00

Doctoral student Inga Liepaitė & Associate Professor Aušra Navickienė
Institute of Book Science and Documentation,
Faculty of Communication, Vilnius University

The 18th international conference devoted to book science, Book and Media Science: Research, Researchers, Communication, was held at the conference hall of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, 22–23 October 2009. The event was organized by the Institute of Book Science and Documentation from the Faculty of Communication at Vilnius University. As with previous conferences, assistance was provided by HIBOLIRE and, this year for the first time, by the Department of the Humanities and Social Sciences from the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The programme of the conference is available as a pdf-file.

As was noted during the conference, two anniversaries gave cause to reflect over developmental landmarks and past achievements in book sciences, as well as its relationship to other sciences, both in Lithuania and other Baltic States: these being the 1000th anniversary of the first recorded use of the name Lithuania, and the 430th anniversary of the founding of Vilnius University.

The range of issues discussed at the conference was extremely broad and challenging. However, while a focus of attention was ancient manuscripts and printed books, it was the issues raised about concepts used by the founding fathers of book science and problems they faced, together with their applications, that were discussed most enthusiastically, often within a modern unstable context of 21st-century developments such as relations between traditional and digital books or in disquisitions related to the traditional book and the future of its study. It is hoped that the latter issues will provide guidelines, which will determine topics for future Vilnius conferences devoted to book science.

Over two days, the speakers and participants of the conference had an opportunity to hear 32 presentations, by scholars from Belarus, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, France, Russia, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden. Some speakers were visiting Lithuania for the first time.

The event was opened by the chairman of the organizing committee, Professor Domas Kaunas of Vilnius University, and Associate Professor Andrius Vaišnys, Dean of the Faculty of Communication, who welcomed conference delegates. This was followed by three gripping plenary presentations. The first speaker was by Professor Simon Eliot of IES, University of London. His speech was devoted to a rather intriguing issue – has book history a future? With the conclusion of his presentation, delegates were relieved to hear that the strongest feature of the book is its tangibility, which is why there would be little reasons to worry about its disappearance. Professor Eliot noted that, due to its broad subject, the book in the future would develop into the history of communication and information. Ideas voiced by Professor Miha Kovač of Ljubljana University, Slovenia, were also inspiring. Professor Kovač stated that the traditional book continues to be the backbone of our civilization and possesses many merits, when compared to speedily developing technologies. Associate Professor Aušra Navickienė, representing Vilnius University, addressed issues related to development of book science.

The conference was organized into four sections. For the first time in the history of the Lithuanian book science, a section devoted to the manuscript book in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its neighbouring countries was undertaken. It was chaired by Associate Professor Alma Braziūnienė of Vilnius University and Dr Tatjana A. Isachenko of the Russian State Library. Seven papers relating to the state-of-the-art of manuscript book research, possible perspectives for the future, possible modes of research, and the reconstruction of the manuscript collections were presented in the given section.

The second section was devoted to the history of the printed book. It was chaired by Professor D. Kaunas from Vilnius University and Professor Tiiu Reimo from Tallinn University. The nine papers in this second section were devoted to theoretical and methodological problems relating to book history, reading, book dissemination and the history of libraries.

The third section, entitled "Book Science Creators and Concepts", was chaired by Ausra Navickienė and Professor Krzystof Migon of Wroclaw University. Nine presentations discussing developments to theoretical problems of bibliography, as well as the scope of book research and book researchers, were given.

The fourth section, entitled "Applied Research of Book and Other Media", chaired by Associate Professor Jurgita Rudžionienė and Associate Professor Aile Möldre of Tallinn University, in which seven presentations were made, can be characterized by the variety of issues investigated. The section considered the relationship of book science with other sciences, book relations of the Baltic States, modern university publishing within the context of the new changes, while issues relating to print statistics and standardization were also discussed, as well as results of the investigation of the documentary science communication being introduced.

In his closing speech Professor D. Kaunas expressed his gratitude to the speakers and listeners for the productive atmosphere of the conference and hoped that each delegate had heard at least one or two interesting presentations of specific interest. Professor Kaunas’ sentiments were endorsed by the conference’s international speakers, who recognised the importance of the event, and expressed their gratitude to the organizing committee for the opportunity to participate. Ilkka Mäkinen, associate professor at Tampere University, said that the attempts of the organizers to create an environment for intellectual exchange between Western and both Mid- and Eastern-European traditions was vitally important. In his opinion, since contemporary book history in the West was born from the integration of Anglo-American and French traditions, there should emerge something entirely new in a Western-, Middle-, and Eastern-European intellectual exchange. Institute of Book Science and Documentation at Vilnius University is doing a great job along just these lines. The forthcoming SHARP conference in Helsinki may be the next important step in this direction.

The conclusions and insights drawn from the conference will continue in future discussions. It is planned that scientific articles prepared from the conference presentations will be published in vol. 54 of Knygotyra (Book Science) in 2010. All issues of Knygotyra are available at the homepage of the publication.

Paper Identification Database

2010-01-14T11:34:00.004+02:00

Since March 2009, The National Archives of Finland has provided on online access to A Database of Historic Paper Identification. The website has been developed by István Kecskeméti, head of the archival technical unit at the National Archives.

The database has been created for collecting data on historic and modern paper characterisation and identification. It began in 2006 as a project under the auspices of the EVTEK Institute of Art and Design and, in the early phases, the Finnish Cultural Foundation provided support for the documentation of the first paper mill in Finland, Tomasböle (1667–1713). The watermark from Tomasböle (see above) presents the coat of arms of the City of Turku, with the initials of Johan Winter, the Royal Book Printer of the Gezelius printing house. This watermark appears in 1680, after the nomination of Winter to the post of Royal Book Printer.

Since then over four hundred entries from various countries have been added to the database. However, Finnish, Swedish and Estonian handmade papers comprise the most prized items in the overall documentation. At the moment most of the new entries are taken from the collections of the National Archives of Finland and the collection of the Museum of Paper (run by the Finnish Pulp and Paper Research Institute).

Content

The database includes information on types of the paper, watermarks and details of laid and chain lines that are characteristic of handmade rag paper. Size, colour and acidity measurements, fibre morphology and pulp type as well as paper sizing and other components in paper also have a place in the database. Images and further detailed images of the paper samples can also be added to the database. Naturally, searches can be carried out in several categories.

Using the Database

All users have free access to the database, with the opportunity for conducting multiple searches. For example, it is possible to search by paper owner, surveyor, type of paper, mould type, water mark classification, dating summary, manufactory, country and place of manufactory, as well as by pulp type. The National Archives would also be happy to receive any comments or suggestions about the content and appearance of the database. All comments are welcome, and should be sent to István Kecskeméti by e-mail at istvan.kecskemeti[at]narc.fi.

More detailed information on the database is available from the following sources:

Kecskeméti, Istvan. “Paper Identification Database” in IADA Papier Restaurierung, no 3/2006.
Kecskeméti, Istvan. “Paper Identification Database, a novel tool for paper characterization and documentation. A case study of early Finnish handmade paper documentation” in IPH 28th yearbook, Capellades/Barcelona, 2006.
Kecskeméti, Istvan. “Paper Identification Database” in Postprints of the 11th seminar on the care and conservation of manuscripts, Copenhagen, 2009.

Nordic Conference on Textual Criticism

2009-11-23T17:20:00.005+02:00

Ulrika Gustafsson

The eleventh conference of The Nordic Network for Textual Critics – Nordiskt Nätverk för Editionsfilologer (NNE) was held in Helsinki from Friday 11 September to Sunday 13 September 2009, with its main theme of Print-published and Electronically-Published Editions. Experiences, Planning and Changing Technology. The conference was hosted by The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (SLS) and undertaken by its editorial staff for Zacharias Topelius Skrifter, the scholarly edition of Finnish author Topelius’s writings, written in Swedish.

Shared Editing Experiences

The NNE conference 2009 took place at Kalastajatorppa (in Swedish Fiskartorpet), i.e. the Hilton Conference and Events Centre, and at the Gyllenberg Art Museum, both located just outside the city centre of Helsinki. Around 80 delegates participated, most of whom were members of NNE from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Lectures were presented in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. The first lecture on Friday afternoon at the Gyllenberg Art Museum was held by Johnny Kondrup (University of Copenhagen) – a member of the NNE executive group – surveying 30 years of Nordic scholarly editions, from August Strindbergs Samlade Verk to N.F.S. Grundtvigs verker (the collected works of August Strindberg and of N.F.S. Grundtvig). He elaborated on relations between print and electronic publishing, and emphasised the question of safe filing. Future conditions of electronic textual editing were overall the central theme to the conference.

First and Second Generation Electronic Editions

Johnny Kondrup was followed by Per Stam (Stockholm University) and Christian Janss (Henrik Ibsen’s Writings), who discussed editions of Strindberg and Ibsen as electronic scholarly editions of the first generation, and Kim Björklund (SLS) and Petra Söderlund (The Swedish Society for Belles Lettres), who discussed the Topelius edition and The Selma Lagerlöfarkivet as editions of a second generation.

On Saturday and Sunday, the conference gathered at Fiskartorpet, where lecturers, including Petra Söderlund, Mats Dahlström (University of Borås), Hilde Bøe (Edvard Munch’s written material), Thomas Gartz (SLS) and Leif-Jöran Olsson (University of Gothenburg), elaborated on the possibilities of digital editing: open access editions, electronic critical apparatuses and how they differ from their printed counterparts, the file comparison programme Juxta and XML coding. Per Dahl (Aarhus University) gave a lecture on the relationship between introduction, commentary and textual criticism, and Jyrki Nummi (University of Helsinki) discussed the structure of the commentary and its importance with examples from the scholarly edition of Finnish author Aleksis Kivi’s Nummisuutarit (Sockenskomakarna, translated in English as The Heath Cobblers).

Besides ePublishing, another major theme was the scholarly editing of letters and diaries. Barbro Ståhle Sjönell (The Swedish Society for Belles Lettres) lectured on a number of concerns brought up in the editing of author’s letters – issues such as the selection and disposition of primary material – and introduced various solutions used in existing editions. From a related perspective, Björn Meidal (Uppsala University) shared his experiences of editing Strindberg’s letters. The conference was brought to a close by Patricia Berg (SLS), who presented the editing of orientalist Georg August Wallin’s travel diaries. The edition of Wallin’s writings is, as Zacharias Topelius Skrifter, a project undertaken by The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland.

The conference papers will be collected and published. NNE has published conference volumes since 1999, which now total eight in the series. For more information on the network, its organisation, conferences and publications, see www.nnedit.org.

Networking

There was also time for networking and socialising beyond the main schedule. Friday’s programme was rounded off with a soprano performance by Ilona Jokinen accompanied by Asta Lötjönen at the piano. They performed a suitably Nordic repertoire of songs by H.C. Andersen, Henrik Ibsen and Zacharias Topelius to arrangements by, among others, Edvard Grieg and Jean Sibelius.

At midday on Saturday, there was an electronic poster session. Editorial staff from Edvard Munchs tekster, Henrik Ibsens skrifter, Anders Chydenius samlade skrifter and Zacharias Topelius Skrifter introduced their achievements in electronic publishing. There was also time for some cultural tourism. Many chose to visit the home and office of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, located at a walking distance from the hotel and conference centre. On Saturday evening the participants in the conference enjoyed a festive dinner, during which some changes in the NNE organisation were announced: Barbro Ståhle Sjönell and Tone Modalsli (National Library of Norway) handed over their tasks in the NNE executive group to Paula Henrikson (Uppsala University and The Swedish Academy) and Hilde Bøe.

The NNE conference 2009 was made possible with funds from The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation and Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. The organisers also want to thank all the participants who made the conference a success. We are grateful for the positive feedback received and look forward to participate in the next NNE conference which will be held in Denmark in 2011.

Ulrika Gustafsson
Zacharias Topelius Skrifter
Svenska litteratursällskapet Finland – The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland
ulrika.gustafsson(at)sls.fi

Fragments of Medieval Books in Bergen

2009-11-13T11:59:00.002+02:00

Jaakko Tahkokallio

In early November this year, 2009, The Center for Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen held a workshop entitled The Manuscript Triangle: France-England-Scandinavia 1100-1300, co-funded by NOS-HS (Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences).

Over thirty European medievalists attended to examine French and English influences in medieval Nordic book production. Most of the presentations were concerned with fragments of liturgical books, leaves of which were used as wrappings and bindings for account books in the 16th and 17th centuries. This manner of secondary use has preserved fragments of thousands of medieval books once formerly put to use in monasteries, cathedrals and parish churches throughout Scandinavian. The fragments thus illustrate all levels, high and low, of a once flourishing Scandinavian medieval manuscript culture.

During the workshop, a wide range of topics were discussed, concerning both a triangle comprising France, England and Scandinavia and the period 1100 to 1300. Topics covered included Parisian book production in the twelfth and thirteenth century; glossed books of the Bible and other glossed books; large twelfth-century Bibles; large high-quality English missals; law books; Cistercian manuscripts and much more. The workshop programme, material used during the presentations, a list of participants and other information can be found at the website of the workshop.

Birth of Literature in Finnish

2009-10-19T11:48:00.009+03:00

Last Saturday, 10th of October, was Finnish Literature Day, set aside to commemorate Aleksis Kivi (born Alexis Stenvall) and the advent of literature in Finnish. Kivi (1834-1872) was the first modern author to write in Finnish. His best known novel, Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers, published originally by the Finnish Literature Society in 1870) has become a classic of Finnish culture, and has been translated into several languages. Previously in the 19th century, local literary and scientific endeavor had communicated in Swedish: Finnish language and vocabulary did not yet support such activities. Educated members of the society would use Swedish (usually it was their first language), while the common Finnish-speaking population people would have been able to read but less frequently have been able to write. Kivi himself came from a poor rural ramily, but he had learnt Swedish and was able to study at university.

The development of a Finnish language was the key element for Finnish national culture and identity. Although there had been earlier efforts to write novels in Finnish, Kivi was the first Finn successfully to link the form of the novel to vivid descriptions of common Finnish life and language.

Although Kivi had won several prizes in the 1860s as a playwright, the early reception of his prose was notoriously harsh: August Ahlqvist, Professor of Finnish and a leading figure in the development of written Finnish at the time, condemned the novel, its language and its plot: for him, Kivi’s language was too rough and his description on Finnish peasants immoral.

Kivi had important supporters both at the university and at the Finnish Literature Society (SKS), but that support could not immediately dispel the accusations Ahlqvist had put forward. Furthermore, the unstable political situation of the early 1870s, along with SKS’s faltering publishing activities, which suffered from poor finance and nonexistent entrepreneurial drive, combined to withhold Kivi's work from its potential audience. The original edition was issued 500 copies: 134 sold immediately as a part of SKS’s novel series, while the rest languished for three years in storage before brought to any additional book market. In 1877-1878 SKS published Kivi’s Collected Works, but the book series was impossibly expensive for most Finns. A truncated version for young readers was published in 1891, but up to the very end of the century Seven Brothers was a rare sight in book stores.

In a climate of heavy criticism and with no public signs of support Kivi died, his already-weakened mental condition having been brought to a state of collapse. Initial condemnation of Seven Brothers and the low key of its early publishing history have lead scholars to believe that Kivi’s significance and his accomplishments were not understood until the late 19th or early 20th century: thereby creating the figure of a misunderstood genius rescued by future generations.

However, in his Impivaaran kaski. Aleksis Kivi kirjallisuutemme korvenraivaajana (The Burnt Clearing at Impivaara. Aleksis Kivi as Trailblazer of Finnish Literature. SKS, 2009), Esko Rahikainen turns away from the well-studied academic condemnation of Ahlqvist and instead conducts an inquiry into Kivi's popularity among the larger reading audience. Rahikainen begins by showing that Kivi was Finnish theatre's most successful playwright of the late 19th century - and that the audience of theater-goers most likely exceeded that of novel readers. Furthermore, Rahikainen details many of the dispersed examples that show peasants and other rural examples reading or listening Seven Brothers and other texts of Kivi.

Such sources could be used to dispute the earlier assumption of Kivi's neglect. Alternatively, they could be used to open a broader discussion into how popularity and success could be measured in the late 19th century Finland, in a context where the expensive novel in Finnish would be difficult to apprehend by a Swedish speaking bourgeoisie, and at the same time prove remote to Finnish-speaking peasants unused to fiction or even books. To do so, the rivalries and hesitations evident in the academy stand in contrast to the interest and often even enthusiasm of peasants.

It had seemed that after a century of studying early criticism and (dis)approval of Kivi, we already knew the opinions stated and actions taken. However, recent decades have opened up new contexts and viewpoints: what does popularity mean, and where should it be sought; should our concern be for Ahlqvist's revulsion or for the peasants’ admiration? The questions are not only relevant to studies on Kivi. They are also part of new approach in studying both late 19th-century Finnish cultural life and how the common people – the largest part of the society – began to take part in secular cultural activities and create its own visions, opinions and even works of art. Whose opinions and acts count – or indeed interest us?

Jyrki Hakapää

IFLA in Helsinki 2012

2009-10-08T14:59:00.003+03:00

Jyrki Hakapää

I was already excited on the forthcoming SHARP conference in Helsinki, but now comes news that the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) has given the World Library and Information Congress: 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly to Helsinki in 2012. Exact dates or theme are not yet given, but check IFLA's conference news for further information once the event approaches.

SHARP might be much smaller and probably more academic organization compared to IFLA. Nevertheless it feels great to remark - or even boast -, that the next decade will begin with Helsinki as an important centre of international book culture and history activities.

New Editor and Call for Papers on Popularism

2009-09-21T13:33:00.005+03:00

Simon R. Frost & Jyrki Hakapää

The blog has now an editorial team! Many of our readers may remember Simon R. Frost (University of Southern Denmark) as the organiser of the first thematic SHARP conference in Nordic countries. Published Words, Public Pages, held last year at the Danish Royal School of Library and Information Science (Copenhagen), brought many Nordic book historian together and demonstrated their interest in further collaboration.

And there's more coming from Denmark. Slagmark, journal of the Department of the History of ideas, Aarhus University, has just announced a call for papers for their special issue on popularism, "Det Populaer", which, according to their description, will take an interest in material culture, mass media and the public. That Slagmark tends towards papers having a fair degree of theorisation to them
will in no way disqualify readers of this blog. Their deadline for
submissions is 20 October 2009. For further information, see Slagmark's announcement.

Book Culture from Below: Submit Your Proposal

2009-09-15T13:10:00.004+03:00

Jyrki Hakapää

Many of you have probably gotten the message already, but here it is one more time: You can submit now a proposal to Book Culture from Below - The 18th Annual SHARP Conference, to be held in Helsinki 17-21 August 2010. Click the conference logo on the right for the conference website: there you find closer details and the official proposal form. The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2009.

Books from Finland

2009-09-01T12:51:00.003+03:00

Jyrki Hakapää

The academic year is about to begin here in Finland. The university buildings are filling with new students running through their introductory lectures and campus tours. Our blog acknowledges the beginning of the academic year with an entry on the Finnish contemporary literature.

A good number of Finnish writers have been translated to foreign languages and some have even risen to international fame: for example all Frenchmen probably know Arto Paasilinna, Matti Rönkä’s criminal novels became recently German critics’ favorites, and Americans might remember how Mika Waltari’s Sinuhe the Egyptian became a Hollywood movie. And who could forget Tove Jansson and the Moomin family? However, Finnish publishers have not traditionally invested much effort in promoting their authors in the international market, and literary agents are only a recent phenomenon in the Finnish book business. For a long time the distribution of information about Finnish literature was largely based on one publication, the journal Books from Finland which is published jointly by the Finnish Literature Society and FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange. Founded in 1967 and published in print form until 2008, the journal is now available online for free.

Books from Finland offers a broad view on Finnish literary culture. It publishes articles and interviews of contemporary writers as well as translations of their works. Besides fiction, the site also offers essays on contemporary literary culture and reviews of academic works in the fields of literature studies and book history.

When it comes to book history and book historians’ interest towards recent developments of literary and print culture as well as publishing business, Books from Finland has interesting articles to offer. In a recent volume, the literary scholar Teemu Manninen writes about ways of re-inventing the book. Though many have eulogised the new media – internet, e-book and digital publishing – Manninen points out dissident voices that foretell the return of the paper. You can also find a mini review of the history and bibliography of Finnish-language literature published in Soviet Union during 1918–1944, Suomi rajan takana, by Pauli Kruhse and Antero Uitto.

PS. We have added some new features to the blog. On the right side you will find a list of blogs and websites who have kindly mentioned our blog or the forthcoming Book Culture from Below – The 18th Annual SHARP Conference. Moreover, there are links to bloggers who have become our followers. Neither list is supposed to be comprehensive sources for book history or book historians; rather they are meant to function as social tools. We are thrilled to have company while blogging about book history!

History of Writing in the Middle Ages - Book Review

2009-08-10T11:01:00.012+03:00

Tuomas Heikkilä. Piirtoja ja kirjaimia. Kirjoittamisen kulttuurihistoriaa keskiajalla. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Helsinki, 2009 [Tuomas Heikkilä. Strokes and Letters. Cultural History of Writing in the Middle Ages. Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki, 2009].

Jyrki Hakapää

Piirtoja ja kirjaimia is the latest proof of Finnish researchers’ lively interest in medieval book culture. It sums up many recent findings and research results for a wider readership and succeeds admirably in creating an overview of a European history of writing through the Middle Ages. While writing in the European context, Tuomas Heikkilä (acting professor of general history at the University of Helsinki) seeks also to reveal “an open secret” of Finnish history, as he points out in the first pages of the book: although for a long time Finnish scholars have known the presence of writing and books in local societies at least from the 12th century onwards, that is, from the time when Catholic church arrived to south-western shores of the current Finland, this knowledge has not reached wider acknowledgement. Drawing from a number of examples, Heikkilä shows that medieval Finland and its writers and readers were full-blooded participants of European cultural activity and heritage during the late Middle Ages.

Heikkilä begins by explaining various equipments and raw materials that were needed for writing and creating the final product the manuscript. He continues with presenting the environment for writing: how the church, administration, educational institutions and business created the need and possibilities for putting texts on parchment or paper. He introduces the history of various styles of writing and discusses the uses and influences of writing and written texts in the medieval times. At the end Heikkilä shortly presents the emergence of the printing press and the gradual decline of the medieval scribal tasks.

The challenge for Heikkilä's task of combining a European tradition to Finnish culture is the scarcity or anonymity of original material in Finnish archives. Only a dozen or so locally produced or used medieval codices have survived to modern times. Other sources have revealed only few bishops' and monasteries' acquisitions and library collections. Collections of fragments have been left unexplored.

Especially the last-mentioned fragments are a difficult source material: as the promotion of Lutheranism progressed in the late 16th and early 17th century Swedish realm, the administration broke old and in the new settings infidel catholic manuscript books in sheets. These sheets disappeared for example to the sky as firework wrappers or artillery’s pouches for gunpowder, or to the garbage cans as candy and spice wrappers. However, in the end we might have to thank the civil servants of the early modern era, because many sheets were used to cover official document collections and have survived until today. These archives have been now explored, and Heikkilä and other Finnish medievalists have recently taken the task to find, save, identify and study over 10 000 fragmentary sheets as well as finally to digitize them – a project, which will surely be presented in this blog later on. The project greatly increases our chances of understanding medieval societies both in Finnish and European contexts.

In Piirtoja ja kirjaimia, the Middle Ages are not one continuous entity, but have multiple periods. Heikkilä mentions three renaissances – the Carolingian renaissance, renaissance of the 12th century, and the proper Renaissance – as periods which witness the emergence of written culture’s modern elements. The book concentrates on the late medieval centuries from 13th century onwards and follows the research tradition to separate the monastic and secular eras of medieval writings. Heikkilä concentrates on the increase and distribution of scribal culture and its products as well as the secularization and professionalization of the book culture during the last medieval centuries. He takes part in the discussion on the influences of the printing press by arguing how many of the elements of the print culture – various bibliographic terms, font styles, range of punctuation marks, sizes and forms of codices, isolation of various tasks and professions of the book business, use of vernaculars etc. – had been created already during the age of manuscripts. His vision continues the discussion on the continuous and evolving history of the book culture which took place from the 13th to the 16th century, over the emergence of the printing press. His book works much in the spirit of Marcel Thomas’s introduction on late medieval book culture into Lucien Frebvre's and Henri-Jean Martin's L’Apparition du livre as they both seek to connect the late medieval book history to the history of the printed books.

Heikkilä's book proves that researchers of the medieval manuscript culture adhere to many of the ideas developed within the modern book history. The need to understand the chain of production, distribution and reception is apparent. Especially the need of various skills for producing a copy as well as the living and working conditions of the artists and artisans responsible for this are described well. Heikkilä succeeds also in showing the importance of the writing activities and texts in the medieval societies.

While one can criticize Heikkilä’s insistence on the significance of the medieval scribal culture for the later developments in book culture, he convincingly argues for the necessity of combining the study of the book cultures of the late medieval centuries and early modern period together. Too often, at least in the Finnish context, researchers tend to study either the medieval manuscripts or the later printed books, but rarely are they put together in one research project. While Piirtoja ja kirjaimia is an admirable work on medieval history of writing, it also makes intriguing suggestions for studying the oral, manuscript and written culture together.

A Medieval Medical Textbook Transmitting Greek, Byzantine and Arabic Traditions

2009-07-14T14:31:00.009+03:00

Outi Kaltio, Matti Haltia and Heikki Solin

Constantine the African's Liber Pantegni: Transmission of Greek Medical Tradition to the Latin West via Byzantium and the Arabic World. An interdisciplinary symposium sponsored by the Academia Europaea, the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, and the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Helsinki, Finland, 4–6 June 2009

The tradition of classical Greek medicine reached medieval Europe largely through Latin translations of Greek and Arabic medical literature. The Arabs had been exposed to Greek medical culture preserved in the lands conquered from the Byzantine Empire. The first wave of such translations was connected with the Salerno School of medicine and its central figure Constantine the African. He moved from North Africa to Southern Italy at around 1070 and worked at the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino until his death (before 1098/9). The most influential of his many translations was Liber Pantegni, based on the famous book al-Malakî of the Persian physician Haly Abbas. Liber Pantegni was the first comprehensive treatise of medical science in the Latin language and rapidly became the leading textbook of medicine at the first European universities and medical schools. Despite its pivotal role in the early development of European medicine, no modern editions or translations of Liber Pantegni into any modern language exist.

Our symposium was prompted by a manuscript on parchment in the collections of the National Library of Finland, which turned out to be one of the earliest preserved manuscripts of Theorica Pantegni (the important theoretical part of Liber Pantegni), written during the late twelfth century, probably in Germany, France or Belgium. The manuscript eventually ended up in St. Petersburg, in the collection of old medical books of Joseph von Rehmann, actual state counsellor and personal physician of Tsar Nicholas I. After von Rehmann's death, the Tsar acquired the collection and in 1832 donated it to the Helsinki University Library (currently the National Library of Finland).

Research on the manuscript is now in progress with the final aim of producing a Latin edition and English translation of Theorica Pantegni. Distinguished scholars from various disciplines and different countries were invited to the symposium to discuss subjects related to the transmission of Greek and Arabic medical tradition to the medieval Latin West, with particular emphasis on the role of Constantine the African and his Liber Pantegni in this process. The symposium was accompanied by a workshop concentrating on practical problems and open questions related to the editorial work of Theorica Pantegni.

After the fancy welcome reception at the Villa Gyllenberg, hosted by the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, the scientific programme of the symposium started next morning with addresses by Thomas Wilhelmsson, Rector of the University of Helsinki, and Jürgen Mittelstrass, Past President of the Academia Europaea. Two sessions with seven presentations were held on the Greek medical tradition and its transmission to the Latin West. The topics concerned were Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Arabic medicine, Latin translations of Arabic medical texts, the Jewish contribution to the transmission process, and reflexions of Hellenistic medicine in the Nordic Renaissance. (The complete programme of the symposium is available here)

The symposium also included a joint meeting and reception with the Friends of the National Library. The event took place at the Cupola Hall of the National Library of Finland where the 12th century manuscript of Constantine the African's Theorica Pantegni was on display. Two lectures were given: Professor Heinrich von Staden (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) spoke on migrations of Greek medicine from antiquity to the early modern period, and MA Outi Kaltio (University of Helsinki) presented Constantine the African's Theorica Pantegni and the manuscript in the collections of the National Library.

The next day of the symposium concentrated on the Salerno School of medicine and Constantine the African's Liber Pantegni with five presentations. In the first lecture the evidence for and against the existence of a medical school at Salerno already in Roman times was critically evaluated. Two presentations dealt with codicological aspects of certain manuscripts of Liber Pantegni, one in the National Library of Finland, and another two in English libraries. The subsequent speaker discussed the relation of Practica Pantegni (the second part of Liber Pantegni) to the Arabic original by Haly Abbas and to other source texts. Finally, a comparison was made between different textual versions of Theorica Pantegni, and the relation of the manuscript in the National Library of Finland to other preserved manuscripts was examined.

The programme ended with a workshop and round table discussion with the speakers. Outi Kaltio presented her work in progress, the editing of the fifth book of Theorica Pantegni. Practical problems, such as choice of manuscripts, correcting of the base text, orthography, punctuation etc., were covered in a lively discussion. The future editing of the whole body of Theorica Pantegni was also brought out, and many of the speakers expressed their willingness to participate in the project.

The symposium gathered together outstanding scholars to discuss the roots of modern European medicine and Constantine the African's Liber Pantegni, Europe's first comprehensive textbook of medicine. Their contributions and continuous support and advice will be of great value for the editing and publishing process of Theorica Pantegni.

The papers presented at the symposium will be published in European Review (the official journal of the Academia Europaea) in 2010.

Outi Kaltio is a doctoral student at the Department of Classical Philology (University of Helsinki)
Matti Haltia is a professor emeritus of Neuropathology (University of Helsinki)
Heikki Solin is a professor emeritus of Latin Philology (University of Helsinki)

Hibolire Doctoral Summer School - Tampere June 4-5 2009

2009-07-02T14:19:00.008+03:00

Ilkka Mäkinen

It was a cold (+5 degrees Celsius), wet and rainy early June 2009 in Tampere, Finland (hard to imagine now, a couple of weeks later, when it is +25 degrees). I had advised the participants of the HIBOLIRE Doctoral Summer School that this time of year was usually nice and warm: but now “rough winds” did “shake the darling buds of June”. Happily, leaving the cold winds outside, the 25-person group gathered at the new faculty building of the University of Tampere to create their own warmth. The participants, all members of HIBOLIRE, came from different Scandinavian and Baltic countries.

The mood was enthusiastic since, among the senior members and the doctoral students, were new faces some of whom were to speak before an international audience for the very first time: true “darling buds”. An item of news that also inspired was that our HIBOLIRE member Henrik Horstbøll had been installed as the new professor of Book and Library History at the University of Lund, on that very day. Unfortunately, because of that event, he could not participate in our summer school.

HIBOLIRE, the Nordic-Baltic Research Network on the History of Books, Libraries and Reading, is a multinational and multidisciplinary network of scholars from Scandinavian and Baltic countries. We also wish to improve our cooperation with scholars in northwestern Russia. The activities of HIBOLIRE are supported by Nordforsk, an independent institution operating under the Nordic Council of Ministers for Education and Research. Our intitial three-year funding covered the period from 2006 to 2009, while an extension will enable further activities from 2009 to 2010. The network organises annually at least one doctoral seminar, in addition to other events. Next year, our main goal will be to co-organize the annual SHARP conference in Helsinki. Minna Ahokas, a member of the organizing committee, informed us of the present status of planning.

The first keynote speaker, Dr. Lotte Hellinga from UK, former Deputy Keeper at the British Library, opened the summer school with her speech titled Histories of the book, old and new, and what they have in common, where she touched upon many important themes. What especially struck me was the importance she laid on the popularization of book history. Why doesn’t someone write a “Gutenberg Code” or a “Schoeffer Code”? Book history is full of good stories. The popularization theme is closely connected with another matter she raised, namely, the importance of lifting one’s eyes from details and over the national boundaries in order to see and talk about the larger context.

Dr. Hellinga’s coments about popularization reminded us that our network had listed popularization as one of the initial aims of HIBOLIRE. Popularization in a manner that is both exacting and appealing is difficult to do, but in our own way we shall try, by publishing in July a popular book on the library histories in the region that our network covers; indeed covering a large part of the globe from Greenland to Finland. The book will be titled Library Spirit in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. Historical Perspectives. Not a “Library Code” (perhaps a “Dewey Code”?) but hopefully more accessible than ordinary treatises on library history.

The theme of the summer school, Books as material objects, books in space, books in movement, was deliberately unrestrictive, since all doctoral students of the network irrespective of the subject of their dissertation should have a chance to receive feedback. The theme was intended also to involve jointly both book and library historians. Nevertheless, one theme, books in space, was so successful in gathering speakers that the theme earned its appearance in the title of the summer school. One of the keynote speakers, Prof. Alistair Black of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, spoke about Books, Buildings and Social Engineering. Early Public Libraries in Britain from Past to Present based on the newly-published book co-authored by himself, Simon Pepper and Kaye Bagshaw. His presentation was as richly documented with images as the book itself. I believe it was fortunate that the somewhat trite term “social concept” was replaced by “social engineering”.

A senior member of the network, Nan Dahlkild from the Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, entered the history of library buildings from the Scandinavian angle, and a doctoral student, Pentti Mehtonen, from the University of Tampere presented his dissertation project on the discourse on library buildings in the Finnish professional press. The trio was completed by the presence of Ms. Hanna Aaltonen, who has written an extensive article on Finnish public library buildings in the recent Suomen yleisten kirjastojen historia (History of Finnish public libraries) published just after the summer school. Such a congregation of themes is very welcome, even if it is not possible always to achive, since research themes in the fields covered by the network are so varied.

There were additional senior researcher papers by Wolfgang Undorf (Royal Library, Stockholm) challenging a number of concepts that we take as self-evident in book history, and Alma Braziniune (Vilnius University, Lithuania) about the private library as an object of research in book science and librarianship. Both subjects also have a contemporary importance given the current digitisation of books and even whole libraries. These papers should surely be published as articles or books.

It is impossible to provide summaries of every doctoral students’ paper at the summer school. And, fortunately, there is no reason to do so. Students will be presenting the results of their work in due course themselves: the entire workshop program becoming available at here.

We were successful in gathering people from different levels of scholarship, from different countries and with different disciplinary backgrounds. The mix created a fruitful opportunity for getting to know people and exchanging information and opinions. A problem was the different rhythm of universities in the Nordic countries that prevented people from certain countries from participating. This fact must be taken into account when future events are planned.

Doc. Ilkka Mäkinen is a lecturer at the Department of Information Studies, University of Tampere, and the treasurer of HIBOLIRE.

Ordinary Writings in the North

2009-06-20T18:06:00.005+03:00

Davíð Ólafsson

The Nordic network The Common People and the Processes of Literacy in the Nordic Countries: Excursions to the Scribal and Print Cultures in the 18th and 19th Centuries, workshop Between Categories – Evaluation of Concepts and Data. Kiljava, Finland, 4–5 June 2009

The Nordic countries have, like many other regions, seen a steep rise in certain sectors of cultural history over the last decade or two. This wave can be attributed with various labels, and among them are components from history of writing, history of the book, vernacular linguistics, post-medieval manuscript culture, history from below and microhistory. Its participants, either individually or linked in small groups, have come from various disciplines - history, literary history, linguistics, folkloristic etc - and have increasingly sought out cross-disciplinary as well cross-national dialogues. Characteristically, discussions are set mostly within the modern period – the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries – rather than the early-modern era as is common in many other countries. Over the last decade Nordic scholars have progressively participated in multi-national collaboration: within the Nordic region, in Europe, and internationally (including SHARP). The network The Common People and the Processes of Literacy in the Nordic Countries: Excursions to the Scribal and Print Cultures in the 18th and 19th Centuries is the latest embodiment of this.

This pan-Scandinavian network is one result of a current Finnish research project called 'The Common People': Writing, and the Process of Literary Attainment in the Nineteenth-Century Finland, led by Professor Lea Laitinen at the University of Helsinki, and funded by the Academy of Finland from 2008 to 2011. Collaboration is also underway with two other research networks in the making: one Swedish, on everyday literary practices, and one Icelandic, on post-medieval manuscript culture that will apply for a local grant of excellence next fall. In 2008, the Nordic network attained a grant from The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS) to hold two exploratory workshops in 2009 and to prepare further applications for Nordic and international financing.

The first explorative workshop scheduled for 2009 was held 4-5 June at the Kiljavanranta Conference Centre near Helsinki. The leading proponent for this endeavour, Dr. Anna Kuismin, chaired the meeting. Nineteen participants gathered from all five Nordic countries. Three sessions were held on the first day with eight presentations by Anna Kuismin and Kaisa Kauranen, Kati Mikkola, Kati Launis, and Jyrki Hakapää from Finland, by Britt Liljewall and Ann-Catrine Edlund from Sweden, by Arne Apelseth from Norway and by Guðný Hallgrímsdóttir and Davíð Ólafsson from Iceland. Among the themes discussed were self-taught writers and their manuscripts and printed works in Finland, manuscripts of Icelandic women, research on the history of reading and writing in Norway and Sweden and the issue of class and society.

The second day opened with a plenary lecture Analysing class, writing proficiency and pauper documents from 19th century Europe: A minefield between linguistics, history and cultural studies given by Wim Vandenbussche (Professor of Dutch Linguistics at the Vrije Universitet in Brussels). In an illuminating and far-reaching talk, Vandenbussche touched upon a number of subjects that brought the group together, such as extant writings from people of the lower strata, their use of language and the written medium and interaction between different literary practices based on ethnicity, geography, class and other socio-cultural variables.

Prof. Vandenbussche’s lecture was followed by four more presentations, by Finnish scholars Lea Laitinen, Taru Nordlund, and Kirsti Salmi-Niklander, by Elena Rosnes from Norway, and by Matthew Driscoll from Denmark. In their joint presentation, Lea Laitinen and Taru Nordlund discussed Finnish sources on linguistics from below, while Elena Rosnes presented her study on the language of the Kven people of Finnish descendancy in Norway. Matthew Driscoll from Denmark gave an account of the function of scribal culture and its most popular genres in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Iceland. Finally folklorist Kirsti Salmi-Niklander discussed oral-literary tradition and hybrid genres in early twentieth-century Finnland.

The last hour of the workshop was assigned to general conclusions and planning of the Copenhagen workshop that will take place in the coming December. There, the aim is to prepare a Nordic research project on the subject of the attainment and employment of writing among the general public at the advent of modernity.

Davíð Ólafsson is a researcher at the Reykjavik Academy, Iceland

Welcome

2009-06-10T13:10:00.009+03:00

Welcome to the blog Book History Up North, a blog that aims to inform our readers about book history events and publications in Nordic and Baltic Countries.

Book history has long traditions in the Northern Europe: for many countries the rise of nationalism and national culture during the 19th century meant an effort to create and study the local print culture and its achievements. For the last twenty years modern book history's methodologies and results have renewed these local traditions and led to further co-operation both in regional and international settings.

The arrival of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing to the Baltic Sea Region - first at the thematic conference Published Words, Public Pages in Copenhagen in September 2008 and soon at the 18th annual SHARP conference Book Culture from Below in Helsinki, 17-21 August 2010 - is a major sign of Northern Europe's book historians' efforts to operate on the international level. However, the local researchers and their studies are still rarely presented in global settings, as the language barriers have been set high.

Therefore, to provide information about Nordic and Baltic book history and prepare all book historians for the forthcoming SHARP conference in Helsinki, we have decided to open this blog. During next 15 months, we aim to give you news and reviews on recent book history activities. Once you arrive to Book Culture from Below -conference, you have already familiarized yourself with Nordic and Baltic book historians, their projects and results. If you are not able to participate, we hope that this blog as such will give you a good starting point for further exploration and collaboration.

Jyrki Hakapää
Chair of the organising committee
Book Culture from Below - The 18th Annual SHARP Conference
Helsinki, 17-21 August 2010