With occasion to the DARIAH-SE launch as full-member of DARIAH-EU, we visited Linnaeus Univeristy in Växjö where its coordinator Koraljka Golub greeted us and other members of the Swedish national infrastructure Huminfra for a DARIAH launch seminar on December 9. The consortium was introduced to DARIAH Campus and SSH Open marketplace, and discussed the best way to bring their national resources to international fellow humanists. This was a good opportunity to exchange information about how to best organise a national consortium and start conversation as to what resources and research support could be done jointly.

Similarly as our joint efforts with FIN-CLARIN in FIN-CLAIRAH, HumInfra is the Swedish national infrastructure supporting digital and experimental research in the Humanities. Huminfra.se provides users with a single entry point for finding existing Swedish materials, research tools, and national method courses.

As neighboring countries that share historical roots, it is common for Finns to make research visits or partner-up with Swedes. For example, the “Mapping Saints” project is a collaboration between Linnaeus and other Swedish universities with Tampere University that is creating a database, research and educational resources about lived expressions of religious cult to saints across both countries (project site). Indeed, it comes a point in the history of both countries where the lines between Finland and Sweden blur and it is of interest for both countries to facilitate information about where to find sources and give remote access to that common history.

This is why, as outcome of our visit, we looked into our own resource and data-repositories and with help of members of the DARIAH-FI network we collated this dossier containing an overview of tools that enable working with multilingual data, as well as access to historical datasets, such as the fully digitized Swedish newspapers and historical map collections from the Swedish period kept at the National Library of Finland, as well as tips for finding Swedish-language archival material in The National Archives of Finland.

Stay tuned for more collaboration and join resources för i Finland pratar vi svenska!

Title image: Linnaeus University, Växjö. Photo: Huminfra.se