The Nordic University Library - Culture and National Identity

This chapter discusses the evolution of the role of the library—university or civic library - in the construction of an advanced society. The case of Finland in the context of the Nordic Countries will be the main focus. The serious attention Nordic countries gave to libraries, though it might also reflect the historical role of culture and reading in other Eu-ropean countries, was particularly important for the formation of their national identities, and nowhere more so than in Finland. That country has a long history of reading, in individual houses amongst a popula-tion that is widely dispersed, by means of mobile libraries, and in pub-lic libraries in towns, which were enabled by an important Public Li-brary Act, and of course in universities. Subsequently, university librar-ies have benefitted from the attention of Finland’s leading architects, from Carl Ludwig Engel and Gustaf Nyström to Aino, Alvar and Elissa Aalto, Raili and Reimä Pietilä, Juhä Leiviskä and several members of the younger generation. Oodi, the new City Library in Helsinki, opened to the public in 2017 to mark the centennial of Finnish independence, can be interpreted as the latest evolution of the primacy of learning in a democratic society.