The University library’s private archives
Over the years, the University library has received archived documents from, among others, Northern Norwegian authors, academic employees and research groups at UiT. The private archives are located in an internal storage, but are available on request, to researchers, authors, genealogists and others who wish to study the material.
Via this link you can find a list of indexed archives with link to the archive catalogue.
To request access, contact Per Pippin Aspaas.
Ultima Thule
Ultima Thule is the University Library's collection of older print (mainly pre 1900) concerning the Arctic in a broad scope. The collection includes among other things travelogues, expedition reports, older research works, fiction, maps, polar history accounts, portrayal of the sami, etc. Literature on Antarctica is also included in this collection. The Ultima Thule collection is located in a locked, climate controlled room at the Culture and social sciences library. It's possible to borrow a limited number of titles on study hall loan, contact the front desk between 8 AM and 3 PM Monday through Friday.
To set up visits, contact Per Pippin Aspaas.
The Qvigstad collection
Just Knud Qvigstad (1853–1957) was the principal of Tromsø teacher college and a significant researcher of sami and kven language and culture. He collaborated with researchers from all over the High North and was methodically building a book collection of his field of study. Among other things he bought antiquated works on the Samis and other Finno-Ugric peoples and traded publications with colleagues domestically and abroad. The donated this collection of research literature to Tromsø Museum (now The University Museum of Tromsø). The Qvigstad collection is located in a locked, climate controlled room at the university library at the museum.
Contact the museum library at e-mail tmu@ub.uit.no for further information.
Seminarsamlingen (The seminar collection)
Trondenes seminar, a precursor to UiT The Arctic University of Norway, was established in 1826. This institution moved to Tromsø in 1848, and is today known as Lærerskolen (School of Education), the building where the department of education and pedagogy is situated. The seminar had, from the start, its own book collection. Until after the Second World War, the books in this collection were registered in a handwritten catalogue by running numbers (chronologically organised by time of acquisition). The majority of the titles are intact and the collection is without a doubt a rare example of a book collection representing the history of an education school. At present time (autumn 2016) the University Library is working on reconstructing the collection based on the handwritten catalogue. The books will then be placed in locked, climate-controlled storage at the Psychology and Law Library.
For more information, contact Marianne Kaldager
The Indigenous Peoples room
The culture and social sciences library includes a designated room, that holds the indigenous peoples collection and the Gajdušek collection. The room is situated on the top (2nd) floor of the library, in the south west corner.
- The indigenous peoples collection contains publications on the Sami and other indigenous peoples, and Sami publications.
- The Gajdušek collection is a collection of books donated by professor Gajdušek to the library.
For more information, contact Erlend Hagan, subject librarian for Sami and indigenous studies.
The Kolsrud collection
Church historian Oluf Kolsrud (1885–1945) was a professor at the University of Christiania/Oslo and an avid book collector. His particular interests were the fields of history, religion and linguistics. Kolsrud was proficient in a number of languages, among other Old Norse, Latin, Church Slavonic, Finnish, Sami, Russian and Polish. He methodically collected offprints of journal articles, religious pamphlets and local historical literature published in his contemporaneity, in addition to rare, antique works on, among other things, the reformation and church historical issues in several countries. In his late years he assumed the book collection of theologian Sigurd Odland, which mostly contains exegetical academic literature. After Kolsrud passed away the whole collection ended up in Northern Norway, specifically at The Central Library of Northern Norway in Tromsø. The public library in Tromsø still holds some of Kolsrud's books, but after the establishment of The University Library in the 1970s, the majority of the documents were and still are, located here. The Kolsrud and Odland collections are now catalogued and are located in a separate, climate controlled room at the Psychology and Law library. Documents from the collections can be requested for use at the library. From Autumn 2016 it will also be possible to request digital copies from the collections.
For more information, contact Marianne Kaldager.
Digital Collections
Some material from the University Library’s special collections that are public domain and digitized is available from the Digital Collections in Oria. More content will be available gradually.
