Two hundred years ago, Henrik Wergeland, the country's first national archivist, sat at Akershus Fortress in Kristiania and looked after the nation's memory. Now the National Archivist Inga Bolstad will soon be moving parts of the archives to Mo.
- "We are now preparing for the formal establishment of the National Archives in Mo and the takeover of our new warehouse at the turn of the year. This will be our second largest and most modern storage facility," says Inga Bolstad. We are now announcing five positions in Mo, and this strengthens the already established archive environment here.
- First Nav established many archive workplaces here, and now the nation's memory is also coming here. We are very pleased with that. We want to ensure that the establishment is successful, and that the National Archives can grow here if necessary," says the mayor of Rana municipality, Geir Morten Waage.
Gigantic hall
- Our new hall will be enormous, up to 70,000 shelf meters. That's the equivalent of 70 kilometers of papers stacked vertically next to each other - and that's almost to Saltfjellet! This will be our second-largest and most modern warehouse, so this is where we will safely store the nation's memory," says Bolstad.
- When someone contacts the National Archives of Norway and asks to see something from the archives that will be stored here, e.g. the treason archive, employees will digitize what is not already available in the Digital Archives. The National Archives is at the forefront of digitization, and Mo will be important in our further development for better services to users. The employees here will contribute to the important work of improving our digital services," she says.
- This shows that exciting workplaces can be located outside Oslo, and that Mo is attractive to knowledge companies. "The National Archives is working to digitize its enormous amount of material, and they are working on development. There will be opportunities for people with digital skills to seek exciting challenges in a rapidly developing city," says Waage.
What should be here?
- Much of the treason archive is already located in Mo, temporarily stored at the National Library. "The treason archive is one of the largest archives in the National Archives and contains the investigation documents in the vast majority of Norwegian treason and war crimes cases after the Second World War," says Bolstad.
- Archival material related to the Occupation and World War II is among our most sought-after, and interest does not seem to be waning. There is still great interest in this material, including from researchers and journalists, and now Mo is the place where this important documentation is located.
The treason archive includes more than 90,000 treason cases and around 350 war crimes cases. The material totals more than 1200 shelf meters.
- So far, the National Library of Norway has scanned and stored material we have already transported to Mo. Now we're taking over, we're gradually moving the papers to our warehouse and building up our own service. The rest of the huge hall will be decided in 2021. And then I expect us to be «in» with the first documents around the turn of the year," says Bolstad.
Facts about Arkivverket:
- The National Archives is the nation's memory and has preserved Norway's history for 200 years.
- The Swedish National Archives has the country's oldest document from 1189, and an innovation lab that works with artificial intelligence.
- Digitizing and making the archives accessible to everyone is at the top of the Swedish National Archives' work list.
- Arkivverket holds over 270,000 shelf meters of historical data, 6.5 million images and 24,000 sound recordings.
- The Swedish National Archives has archives on property, health, family, history, child welfare, schools, immigration, the judiciary, gender equality and the Middle Ages, to name but a few, as well as archives of organizations, companies and private individuals.
- The Norwegian National Archives has 10 office locations and just over 300 employees. The agency is subordinate to the Ministry of Culture and Equality.
- The National Archives is now establishing itself in Mo. The Swedish National Archives' new storage facility for paper archives is co-located with the National Library in the existing mountain facility in Mo.
