Project Runeberg (runeberg.org) is a volunteer effort to
create free electronic editions of classic Nordic (Scandinavian)
literature and make them openly available over the Internet.
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Projekt Runeberg (runeberg.org) arbetar på frivillig grund med
att skapa fria elektroniska utgåvor av klassisk nordisk litteratur och
göra dem öppet tillgängliga över Internet.
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Greenland
Recently we have improved our books about Greenland. There are quite a few, including dictionaries for the Greenlandic (Eskimo) language.
Greenland was discovered and colonized in 982 AD by Erik the Red, exiled from Iceland, and later recolonized in 1721 by Hans Egede, a Danish-Norwegian missionary. He went there to preach among descendants of the first Scandinavian settlers, but instead he found Eskimos, who now populated the coasts.
Grönland
Vi har sett över, utökat och förbättrat våra böcker om Grönland och det grönländska språket.
Visste du att några norrmän under ledning av meteorologen Hallvard Devold den 28 juni 1931 gick i land på nordöstra Grönland, hissade norska flaggan, och hävdade att de ockuperat landet?
Happy Public Domain Day 2024!
From 1 January 2024, there is no more copyright for works by authors who died in 1953. This includes names such as:
- Elsa Beskow, Sweden
- Sigrid Boo, Norway
- Emil Bønnelykke, Denmark
- Jürgen Jürgensen, Denmark
- Nils Wilhelm Lundh, Sweden
- Henning von Melsted, Sweden
- Herman Neander, Sweden
- Georg Stoopendaal, Sweden
- Albert Tärnlund, Sweden
- Eirik Vandvik, Norway, translator of Greek and Latin classics
- Karl Vilhelm Zetterstéen, Sweden, translator of the Quran (1917)
- Hans Aanrud, Norway
More iron and steel!
Several titles about iron production in Sweden have been added to our page Tema Metals:
- Östman, Järnhandtering i Norrbotten under 1600- och 1700-talen : några minnesblad (1910)
- Åkerman, Några ord om jernhandteringens ståndpunkt i Sverige vid början af år 1873 (1873)
- Åkerman, Några ord om utvecklingen af Sveriges jernhandtering från 1860 till och med 1880 (1882)
- Delling De svenska järn- och metallmanufakturindustriernas utveckling (SOU 1923:44)
- Tärnlund, Det svenska järnet genom seklerna (1931) - a Public Domain Day 2024 addition
Looking back
A year ago, at Public Domain Day 2023, the copyright expired for authors who died in 1952. Among them were two giants, Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun and Swedish explorer Sven Hedin. And we let go of both of them, thinking that others will surely digitize their works and we can wait and avoid duplicated effort. So how did it go?
Most of Hamsun's works in Norwegian have been digitized by Nasjonalbiblioteket, but not many translations. For example, the Swedish translations by Harry Blomberg (who died in 1950) are not made publicly available, perhaps because NB doesn't know when he died. NB has 16 English texts by Hamsun, but only one (Hunger, 2009) is available outside of Norway. Project Gutenberg presents 23 works by Hamsun in a variety of languages. Swedish Litteraturbanken pays little attention to Hamsun's works (in Swedish translation) as translations are not "Swedish" literature. However, a few fragments have been found. Wikisource has a page for Hamsun in a handful of languages, but not in Norwegian. The only work in Swedish is Markens gröda, translated by Hugo Hultenberg. Three titles are available in English, one in Polish, none in French or German.
A reasonable approach for Project Runeberg is to copy NB's digitization of Hamsun's collected works in Norwegian, and then to keep watching for translations as they become available. We can claim to cover Hamsun, without spending much effort.
For Sven Hedin, we have compiled a list of available digitizations. Litteraturbanken presents (in Swedish only, no translations) several books from his explorations, but none of his works on war. Wikisource has just one work, a pamphlet, Ett varningsord (1912). Project Gutenberg presents 14 titles.
There are no "collected works" by Hedin. His works span many genres. We will start out by including Hedin's Adventures in Tibet (Tibetantska äfventyr, 1904) in as many languages as we can find. This is not a scientific treatise, but written as an adventure book for boys, with explicit reference to Marco Polo, Cooper, Defoe and Jules Verne.
So, did we win or lose from waiting to digitize works by these authors? We certainly saved effort by not digitizing ourselves what others have already digitized in past years, e.g. the 15 volumes of Hamsun's collected works. It seems that Wikisource has contributed very little, Project Gutenberg a bit more. Litteraturbanken offers several books by Hedin, but with a bias for explorations. We still have an opportunity to find and fill gaps. On the other hand, our website has a constant number of visitors, which doesn't really increase with new additions. It is really hard to estimate the benefit of any new addition, and to compare this against the effort. A good strategy is to save on the effort.
2023/24 Fundraiser completed
Between 24 September 2023 and 4 January 2024 we successfully raised 50,000 SEK (US$ 4870), mostly in small donations of 100 to 200 SEK (US$ 10 to 20). Thanks to all who donated! Our banners now return to asking for contributions to Ukraine:
https:
Since 24 November 2023 our website is (finally!) running https with encrypted and supposedly more secure connections. Old links to http://runeberg.org will be automatically redirected to https.
Nedan förtecknas några av oss nyligen tillgängliggjorda verk. I flera fall är de digitaliserade av andra, men vi har indexerat och delvis korrekturläst dem.
Litteraturhistoria
- Elster, Illustrert norsk litteraturhistorie (6 delar, 1934-1935)
- Lamm, Dickens och hans romaner (1947)
- Schück, Allmän litteraturhistoria (7 delar, 1919-1926)
- Schück & Warburg, Huvuddragen av Sveriges litteratur (3 delar, 1917-1918)
- Schück & Warburg, Illustrerad svensk litteraturhistoria (7 delar, 1926-1932)
Missionshistoria
- Bodding, Santalmissionen : 50 aars missionsarbeide (1917)
- Larsson, Tio år i Ryssland (1948)
- Pettersson, Äventyr i Central-Afrika : skildringar från Kongomissionens första tid (1923)
Person- och släkthistoria
- Elgenstierna, Den introducerade svenska adelns ättartavlor (9 delar, 1925-1936)
- Elgenstierna, Köping stads tjänstemän 1605-1905 : personhistoriska anteckningar (1907)
- Rehbinder, Ätten Rehbinder genom åtta sekler (1925)
Insamlingskampanj 2023/24
Från den 24 september genomförs vår insamlingskampanj för året. Det är den femte vi genomför och den görs likadan som de förra. En liten reklamskylt (banner, som ovan) syns på några av våra webbsidor, uppmanande till donationer med ett givet mål, 50.000 kronor för verksamhetsåret 2023/24. Bannern tas bort när målet uppnås, och återkommer nästa år. Sedan länge finns en länk "Donate" i sidhuvudet till alla våra webbsidor. Läs mer på vår sida för donationer.
2023/24 Fundraiser
Starting on September 24, a small banner (the one above) is seen on some of our web pages, promoting donations toward our aim of raising 50,000 SEK for the fiscal year 2021/22. The banner will be removed when the aim is reached, and will reappear next year. We have long had a link "Donate" in the header of all our web pages. Read more on our donation page.
The world according to Poe
If you are tired of all the Henrik Ibsens and August Strindbergs of the turn of the century 1900, regularly using trains, telegraphs and even telephones, perhaps you prefer to take a step back to the first half of the 19th century and the time of Edgar Allan Poe? We have updated our presentation of this great American author and have found some of his texts in Swedish and Norwegian translation.
From this era, we have also added or improved the following titles:
- Svenskt konversationslexikon (4 vols., 1845-1851), the first encyclopedia originally written in Swedish, compiled by P. G. Berg.
- Ordbok öfver svenska språket (2 vols., 1850-1853), a detailed dictionary of the Swedish language by A. F. Dalin.
- Journal för animal magnetism (all 5 issues, 1815-1821), edited by P. G. Cederschjöld.
- Sveriges store män, snillen, statsmän, hjeltar och fosterlandsvänner samt märkvärdigaste fruntimmer (1840-1849), and
- 427 porträtter af namnkunniga svenske män och fruntimmer (1847), two Swedish illustrated biographic dictionaries, both compiled by G. H. Mellin.
Datasets
Are you a student or researcher of data mining, natural language processing (NLP) or artificial intelligence (AI)? Perhaps you want to train your own version of ChatGPT? Look no further, now you can download an entire Danish encyclopedia as a dataset.
