Day 4

Here we go again, our 4th day is behind. The program started at 8.30 at the university. This time we went for a tour of the university's picture collection. It is one of the largest and most well-known picture collections in Norway, estimated in 1960s. Picture Collection Department is one of the special collections at the UiB. It contains photos from 1860s to 1970s. The collection holds for 20,000 photos in a card catalogue, 32,000 photos in a database, partially registered photos 26,000, 350,000 "known collections" and approx 600,000 photos remain unknown. Their database http://www.ub.uib.no/bilder/

It was fascinating to hear how people work at this department and how they have managed to form this big collection, including many photos from the well-known photographer Knud Knudsen (1812-1895).

Then we heard an extensive presentation about the other special collection at UiB, Manuscript and Rare Book Selection. They have ca. 2000 users every year and 10-20,000 loans. This collection consists of 14,500 books and journals. We learned about some very old and rare items in it, such as charters, maps, newspapers, manuscripts etc. Some of them dated back from the 13th century and were still readable. We also had a nice lesson in Bergen history.

Related to these rarities, digitization was the next topic. They have this interesting newspaper article database called Retriever, containing the main Norwegian newspapers. It's only accessible on the UiB network, but this is the interface http://www.retriever-info.com/en/ They also have PressDisplay, which is widely used in Finland too.

Check out their website http://www.uib.no/ub/en/services/manuscripts

The day was good, it's always nice to learn how versatile an university can be. Tomorrow is the last day!