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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A Merry Norwegian Christmas!
We are celebrating this Christmas by digitizing Illustreret norsk konversationsleksikon (6 volumes, 1907-1913), an early Norwegian encyclopedia. Here are some articles relating to the season:
Advent (d. e. komme, Herrens komme). Tiden fra kirkeaarets... December (af lat. decem), i den julianske kalender... Eldbjørgdagen er et norsk navn paa trettende dag jul, egentlig den dag... Gjestebud kaldes et festligt maaltid, som indtages i fællesskab af en... Hellige tre konger, de vise fra Østerland, hvorom der fortælles... Helligtrekongersfest fortrængte efterhaanden i vesten Epifaniafesten... Imbredage, norsk navn paa dagene i ugen før jul... Is. 1. (Fys.) Is danner sig af vand, naar dette afkjøles... Jul var i hedendommen navn paa en fest, som feiredes... Nisse i nordisk folketro ett overnaturlgt væsen, der... Ski, oldn. skið, ondurr (betrukket med skind). S.s oprindelse... Skøitesport er dyrket helt tilbage i den forhistoriske tid... Sne, frosset vand i mangfoldig, sammensatte iskrystaller... Vinter begynder efter astronomisk sprogbrug i det nordlige... 
A Good Year
2011 was a good year for Project Runeberg, our 19th since we started in December 1992. To our collection of free electronic editions of Scandinavian literature, 65,900 pages were added, 95,900 pages were indexed by chapter, and 22,000 pages were proofread, making 2011 our third most productive year ever. For our history, see this timeline.
The biggest milestone was the completion on October 7 of the proofreading of Salmonsens konversationsleksikon (26 volumes, 1915-1930), a Danish encyclopedia which was scanned in 2004-2008. (See below.)
New download mode for source files
At the bottom of every page, you find a link to "(download)" files for that work or volume. See for example the bottom of the pages /fstal/ and /legender/. To the list of download options, a new format has been added that allows the download of "all text and index files" for the given volume. The resulting ZIP archive contains files such as Metadata, Articles.lst and Pages.lst, used internally to generate the table of contents and mapping between page numbers and page filenames. It is hoped that this will be useful for those who want to develop their own applications or convert our texts to other formats. Only the current version of each file is included, not the complete revision history.
E-text workshop at FSCONS, November 11
The 5th annual Free Society and Nordic Summit, FSCONS 2011, is held on November 11-13 in Gothenburg. As part of this conference, a workshop on book scanning, proofreading, and advanced reuse of digitized literature is held on Friday November 11. Register now for a most interesting conference.
Salmonsens konversationsleksikon
An important milestone in the digitization of Danish literature was reached on Friday October 7, 2011, with the proofreading and indexing of the last pages of the classic encyclopedia Salmonsens konversationsleksikon (2nd edition, 26 volumes, 1915-1930).
The digitization comprises 27,152 book pages and was started in January 2004. The volumes were scanned and OCRed by Lars Aronsson (volumes 1-8 and 26, in 2004-2005) and Joakim Ragnvaldsson (volumes 9-25, in 2008). Dozens of volunteers helped to proofread and index the pages in 43,107 edits, of which 7,553 (17.5%) were anonymous and 34,696 (80.5%) contributed by the four most active volunteers: Pultz (24,520 edits), PH (5289), Steen (2496), and Finn (2391). The index lists 159,123 articles, each linked to the right page. For example, the article on Danish town Kolding starts on page 300, volume XIV. As can be seen from the "history" link there, this particular page was scanned on April 14, 2008, and proofread on December 25, 2010, correcting several OCR errors, as seen from the difference between versions.
Welcome back, Selma Lagerlöf!
One of Sweden's most loved writers and Nobel Prize laureate in 1909, Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940, see Wikipedia), entered the public domain in 1991, when fifty full years had passed after her death. Project Runeberg was founded in December 1992 and digitized several of her novels in the early years, 1993-1995.
But the Swedish copyright law was altered on January 1, 1996, extending the protection term from life + 50 to life + 70 years, and works by Selma Lagerlöf went back under copyright. We missed her so! After this date, we didn't digitize any more of her works, and stopped working on the ones we had. But we didn't remove them from our website, thinking that we could take them down if and when the copyright owners requested this, which they never did. In the meanwhile, we introduced scanning of facsimile images in 1998 and online proofreading in 2002. Neither of these improvements involved the works by Selma Lagerlöf.
So finally, in January 2011, seventy full years had passed after her death, and for the second time Selma Lagerlöf entered the public domain. But this was a different landscape. Everybody is digitizing books these days. Is it really our task to reintroduce Selma to the Internet? It turns out that only a very few of her works are available at Litteraturbanken and Wikisource. The literary society Selma Lagerlöf-sällskapet provided some information about plans for a huge digitization effort, but it was unclear if this project would get any funding. It has now been confirmed that this project is funded and running, but their aim is different from ours. They intend to produce new scholarly editions of Selma Lagerlöf's works, which will take many years. To serve those who just want to read her novels, this leaves the stage open for us.
Her collected works, Skrifter av Selma Lagerlöf, were published in twelve volumes already in the 1930s and in many later printings. During September and October, Project Runeberg has digitized all but two of them. For some of the novels, facsimile images have been added to the existing e-texts from the mid 1990s (marked F for facsimile). Others are presented with facsimile images and raw OCR text for proofreading, for the first time online (marked N for new).
- Gösta Berlings saga (F)
- Osynliga länkar
- Antikrists mirakler
- Drottningar i Kungahälla (N), Herr Arnes penningar (F), En herrgårdssägen (F), Legender (N)
- Jerusalem I (F)
- Jerusalem II (F)
- Kristuslegender (N), Kejsarn av Portugallien (F)
- Körkarlen (N), Bannlyst (F)
- En saga om en saga (N), Liljecronas hem (N)
- Troll och människor (N)
- Löwensköldska ringen (F), Charlotte Löwensköld (N)
- Anna Svärd (N)
A few of her works are missing from this set, most notably Nils Holgerssons underbara resa, of which we still only have our old e-text. However, this title is also available both from Litteraturbanken and Wikisource.
Nya titlar under tredje kvartalet 2011
Utöver de nya titlar som förtecknas nedan, digitaliserades även fler årgångar av några befintliga titlar, till exempel Svenska Turistföreningens årsskrift, Tiden, Vem är det och Vem är Vem?
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- Auerbach, Carl, Svensk-tysk ordbok (1928)
- Bihang till Frithiofs saga (1841)
- Carl Eric Vesterlund
- Columbus, Samuel, Mål-roo eller roo-mål (1935)
- Döds-Sång för Förre Artilleristen Johan Eric Lundblad wid Dess halshuggning den 15 Mars 1828 (1828)
- Ekbohrn, Carl Magnus, Förklaringar över 100,000 främmande ord och namn m.m. (1936)
- Hellander, Adolf, Skolpojksminnen med flera glada hågkomster från flydda dagar af En gammal skådespelare (1899)
- Hellander, Adolf, Stockholmstyper (1901)
- Hægstad, Marius, Norsk Maallæra elder Grammatik i Landsmaalet (1879)
- Idun : Praktisk veckotidning för qvinnan och hemmet (två provnummer från 1887)
- Lagerlöf, Selma, Liljecronas hem (1911)
- Lagerlöf, Selma, En saga om en saga (1908)
- Lagerlöf, Selma, Troll och människor (1915-1921)
- Mindeskrift i anledning af hundredaaret for Japetus Steenstrups fødsel (1914)
- Nordisk familjeboks månadskrönika (1938-1939)
- Samlingar Til Et Fruntimmers Bibliothek (1773)
- Smitt, Jonas, Om Arbeiderforholdene i Landbruget (1897)
- Spansk-svensk ordbok (1978)
- Sällberg, Thure, Samlade bygdehistorier (1900)
- Wägner, Harald, De löjliga familjerna (1918)
- Aakjær, Jeppe, Mit Regnebræt En Selvbibliografi (1919)
