Project Runeberg

"What is Project Runeberg?

Project Runeberg publishes Nordic literature on the Internet since 1992.

This means free electronic editions of old books from Sweden and the Nordic countries.

For comparison, visit some Other Digital Library Projects.

Your questions and comments are most welcome! We answer letters in English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French.

What has Project Runeberg done?

Our Alphabetic Catalog lists hundreds of titles in several languages.

Most recent additions to our collection.

Most popular items, En nordisk kanon / A Nordic Canon

Take a look at Project Runeberg's Timeline and the Media Coverage of Project Runeberg.

Who is behind this?

Project Runeberg was made by volunteers like you!

This is an open and voluntary initiative to publish free electronic editions of Nordic literature. You are welcome to join our team of volunteers.

Anmäl dig som frivillig medarbetare.

We need more sponsors.

We have a small editorial office at Linköping University in Linköping, Sweden, and hundreds of volunteers around the world. We are supported by the university, but smart solutions, small costs, and happy volunteers mean more than the funding we get.

The project lives at LYSATOR Academic Computer Society, one of the world's first web sites. Read more about Project Runeberg and about LYSATOR.

Is this legal?

Project Runeberg is very careful to respect copyright held by authors, illustrators, and translators. But when they have been dead for more than 70 years, the copyright expires, and we are free to publish their works.

Learn more about copyright.

You can Search for Nordic Authors to find out who died when, biographies, bibliographic data, literary societies and links to other useful web sites.

Can you trust Project Runeberg?

Old poems are still beautiful, but old facts might be obsolete, sometimes even dangerous. We take no responsibility for actions that you take after reading information that we publish.

If you need quotes for your thesis or paper, be careful to use the right edition. We try our best to select the best editions, and to copy them as accurately as we can. But there can always be mistakes.

To avoid suspicions against OCR errors and typing mistakes, we introduced electronic facsimile editions in the fall of 1998. This means you can see an image (bitmap) of the printed page. Some of our editions do not have this feature.

If you suspect errors or have questions, do write to our editors. We have an open attitude and invite your suggestions for improving Project Runeberg.

Why?

Why did we start to publish literature on the Internet? We wanted to publish something on the Internet without having to create the contents ourselves. Literature (text) was easier to handle on the early 1990s computers than music, maps, and movies.

Why do we publish so old literature? Because it must be out of copyright. Learn more about copyright.

Why Nordic literature? The Nordic countries have a long common history. See the Nordic FAQ. Only 10 million people speak Swedish, but the Nordic languages together have 25 million speakers. And many others are publishing literature in other languages.

Read more about Project Runeberg's Design Decisions."