Data services

The National Library of Finland provides users with open data from, for example, digitised newspapers and the national bibliography with the help of pre-created data sets or interfaces.

Service description

Data services serve a wide range of students, researchers, artists, and other data users, regardless of their discipline. Even those who are not researchers can take advantage of the data. Digitised materials also have a download tool that can be used to create a data set that is suitable for your purposes. You can access the data independently with the data catalogue and tools developed by the National Library. You can use the data with the support of the National Library of Finland’s expertise or in co-operation projects with the National Library. The use of copyrighted data, such as online archives, can be explored in co-operation projects. 

Data catalogue

The data catalogue has links to the materials compiled and published by the National Library of Finland, such as full texts of the digitised materials, metadata of library databases, and dictionaries. The catalogue also contains instructions for using the materials with the help of interfaces.

Read more about the data catalogue

Using licensed materials as data  

The National Library of Finland has licensed digital and digitised source material collections, magazine archives, and databases. The aim is to negotiate the right for data mining in material use agreements. In current agreements, researchers and students at the University of Helsinki have such a right to the materials of the Russian media portal Integrum.  

More information: [email protected]  

Digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service for researchers 

Digitised materials can be utilised in research in many ways. You can read and browse them. You can make references to the contents for material lists. By logging in to the service, you have access to a clipping function, which allows you to create your own clippings library. In addition, you can search for clippings made by other users.

Check out our Digital Collections service

Data obtained as open data can be downloaded as ready-made data packages or with a download tool, in which case the downloaded material is selected on a user-oriented basis. Read more about the development of the tool (in Finnish) and the project in which it was developed. 

Download Tool in the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service

You can use the Download Tool available at digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi to download data from newspapers, magazines, ephemera, books, manuscripts and sheet music, or clippings made from such data, insofar as their content is considered largely free of copyright. The number of available magazines and ephemera increases annually as more content becomes free of copyright. Currently, magazines and ephemera until the end of the year 1913 are available for download.  For newspapers, content printed before 1919 is available for download. Other data are available in accordance with the metadata copyright information, which means that the time limit varies by data and publication.

Downloaded material can be viewed and processed in the viewing tool. For example, individual pages can be removed, and comments can be added. The viewing tool for clippings also makes it possible to add keywords to the text content in downloaded clippings using the Finto AI interface service. The keywords can be edited in the viewing tool, and each keyword has a link to Finto. More information on the Finto service is available on the service website.

The latest version of the tool can be downloaded at https://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/opendata/submit?set_language=en under the item DAM (2019–2021). Detailed instructions for using the tool are provided with the download.

Tutkain service

The Tutkain service enables the research use of digitised newspapers and magazines subject to copyright, regardless of time and place.

Digitised newspapers and magazines published in 2021 or earlier can be used in research by logging in to the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service using the credentials of the universities associated with the Tutkain service. This use is made possible by an agreement between the National Library of Finland and the Kopiosto copyright organisation. The current term of the agreement extends until the end of 2027.

The service currently encompasses the following universities and higher education institutions: Aalto University, University of Helsinki, University of Eastern Finland, University of Jyväskylä, LAB University of Applied Sciences, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, University of Lapland, LUT University, National Defence University, University of Oulu, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, University of the Arts Helsinki, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University, University of Turku, University of Vaasa, Vaasa University of Applied Sciences and Åbo Akademi University.

Joining the service requires signing the agreement

Data clinics

Data clinics give participants an overview of the data materials offered by the National Library of Finland, as well as ideas for how to review them and the means by which the data can be examined. They are an opportunity to take an in-depth look at the National Library of Finland’s digitised materials and the data packages created from them under the guidance of specialists.

The National Library of Finland has diverse data materials for research and is a competent research partner. For example, digitised materials benefit digital humanities researchers in various fields. Digitisations, the resulting data and the tools needed to process the data provide new opportunities for data-driven research. 

Data clinics consist of a lecture and a workshop. In the first session, you will get to know the National Library of Finland’s digitised entities, data catalogue and open data services. The second session uses exercises to delve into the possibilities offered by digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi for digital humanities and the data generated by digitisation. The participant will simultaneously be challenged to consider their own research topic in relation to the National Library of Finland’s materials.

Participation in the data clinic does not require previous experience from methods of digital humanities. It is aimed specifically at students in institutes of higher education. The duration of the data clinic is 2 x 90 minutes, and it can be arranged either on site or as a remote event. Data clinics are free of charge.

Schedule a data clinic for your student group by sending a message to [email protected].

We also organise presentations of our collections and services for student groups.

Part of a service package