Special collections
The library’s special collections remind of Finnish Literature Society’s long history.
Materials belonging to library’s special collections are mainly available for use on the library premises only.
Archive collection of SKS publications
The archival collection of SKS publications contains a copy of each work published by the Finnish Literature Society. In 2021, the collection was selected for the national register of the UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme.
The Kalevala collection
The library’s Kalevala collection contains:
- Finnish editions of the Kalevala, our national epic
- Finnish abridgements and adaptations
- translations and abridged as well as adapted translations of the Kalevala into around sixty languages.
Research literature on Kalevala is placed in other collections of the library, especially in the collections of cultural research and literary research.
The Matti Kuusi collection
This extensive collection of paremiological literature contains standard Finnish texts, international classics and rare works on proverbs from different parts of the world.
Vanha Fennica
Vanha Fennica (Old Fennica), the library’s most significant special collection, contains the oldest Finnish literature from the period of Swedish rule (–1809) and the period before the Turku fire (1828).
Photos: Emma Suominen, Gary Wornell.