About Arken

Arken is a search service for archives and collections at the National Library of Sweden and Umeå University Library. Here you can find everything from letters, manuscripts, photographs and drawings to special book collections, ex-libris stamps and audiovisual material.

Searching in Arken

In Arken you can do a key word search by archival desriptions, name, institution, terms, geographical location and genre. You can also browse with the same critera. Alla archives have an overview which summarizes what type of material they contain.

Getting access to the material

If you want to study the physical material you have to do it on location at the respective libraries. Some of the documents have been digitized and are available to download for free in Arken. With time more and more digitizations will be made available.

The system and its standards

Arken is the National Library of Swedens application of the system Access to Memory (AtoM). AtoM is a web-based, open source application for standards-based archival description and access in a multilingual, multi-repository environment.

The system is based on the international archival standards which have been created by the International Council of Archives (ICA) -ISAD(G):standard for archival descriptions
-ISDIAH: standard for description of archival repositories
-ISAAR: standard for authority records

KB collects everything

The National Library of Sweden’s mission is to collect, describe, preserve and make available everything that has been produced and publicly distributed in Sweden without evaluating the content. Users should be aware that the library’s collections include older concepts, images and other historical content that may be perceived as offensive or outdated. Expressions that reflect the attitudes of the authors/creators in their day may evoke strong emotions today, but is part of our history and therefore necessary for our comprehension of the past.

GDPR

The National library of Sweden handles your personal data in accordance with EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR.
Read more about how GDPR works