A New Lundstedt: A bibliography of Swedish periodicals 1967-2004
The project "Nya Lundstedt" (i.e. "A new Lundstedt") is about describing the 20th century Swedish press. The result, two bibliographical databases, is continuing the work of Bernhard Lundstedt and his printed bibliography Sveriges periodiska litteratur 1645-1899 (i.e. Swedish Periodical Literature 1645-1899). The bibliography of 20th century Swedish newspapers was compiled during the years 1995-2001 and was financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. 20th century Swedish magazines by far outnumber the newspapers. In 2002 the work began, also financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The bibliography is in progress and is publicly available in the Swedish union catalogue: LIBRIS webbsök. This particular project concerns magazines with first publication year 1967 or later. From 2005 the work is continued by The Royal Library, National Library of Sweden.
Gunnar Sahlin, the National Library of Sweden
The aim of the project
The application concerned the continuation and completion of a bibliography of the Swedish periodicals that were published between 1900-2004, with their debut years between 1756 and 2004. The bibliography is a continuation of Bernhard Lundstedt's bibliography "Sveriges periodiska litteratur" (Swedish Periodical Literature), issued 1895-1902, which presents and describes the Swedish periodicals from the seventeenth century up to and including 1899. The Nya Lundstedt - Periodicals bibliography is compiled based on the user requirements that were established by press researchers and which were defined in the project's pilot study in 1991.
The periodicals are described in any one of three different levels of detail depending on genre and distribution. The bibliography is continually made available in the LIBRIS online search service and, consequently, can be freely accessed via the Internet. With the help of the bibliography, it will be easy to answer all sorts of questions concerning Swedish periodicals from 1900 to 2004 in LIBRIS.
The Nya Lundstedt - Periodicals 1967-2004 project is the concluding part of the previous Nya Lundstedt - Periodicals 1900-2004 project, which started on 01-04-2002 and finished on 31-05-2006 (RJ's reference K1994-5046:5-7). The final account for this previous part of the project was done in 2007. The Swedish daily newspapers of the twentieth century were entered into a separate bibliography between 1995-2001 through the Nya Lundstedt project. This was also financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
The result of the project
The Nya Lundstedt - Periodicals 1967-2004 project ran from 01-06-2006 until 31-12-2008 and saw 6,320 periodicals entered into the bibliography. The Nya Lundstedt - Periodicals project as a whole has seen a total of 16,051 periodicals entered into the bibliography between 2002-2008. Calculating the amount of time and effort required has been a fundamental difficulty in this bibliography project. When the bibliography of the Swedish twentieth century periodicals is completed, we will know how many periodicals were published during the twentieth century and for the first time we will have secure knowledge about the periodicals. The preliminary calculations made in the project's pilot study have been updated with new calculations made during the course of the project and show that there may be about 22,000 periodicals in total. If this figure is correct, then there are approximately 6,000 periodicals left for the National Library of Sweden to enter into the bibliography in order for the bibliography to be complete.
The work has been carried out by a project group consisting of four people. The project has had a steering committee within the National Library of Sweden and an external reference group including press researchers and those with knowledge of periodicals. The project group has used the National Library of Sweden's collections of legally deposited print material as a starting point, and the source of the bibliography is the periodicals themselves. There has been great endeavor to achieve completeness in the bibliography and only those periodicals that are solely distributed locally have been excluded. The periodicals are categorized with the help of the project's genre classification system and a relatively high level of description is applied for certain genres (e.g. cultural magazines, children's magazines, political magazines, scientific journals and party and trade union press on a central level). A characteristic of periodicals is that they often change over the course of their publication period. The periodical's entire publication period and its more significant changes are described in the bibliography and not only the features of the last or current issue.
During previous project periods, the project group has gone through the National Library of Sweden's older collections entering periodicals with their debut years up to and including 1955 into the bibliography. During the current period, the project has mainly seen periodicals with their debut years from 1956 onwards entered into the bibliography. At the end of the project period, certain elements of this work still remain unfinished and will be continued using the National Library of Sweden's funds.
The project's major technical and methodical problems have been solved during previous project periods. That the LIBRIS online search service can continue to develop the functions for the searching and viewing of periodical material in the future is also vital for the bibliography.
The bibliography's work methods have been integrated with the work conducted in the running National Bibliography of periodicals. The National Bibliography is continuing the Nya Lundstedt - Periodicals work from 2005 onwards to ensure that no new gaps in the National Bibliography will appear.
Periodicals are a rich and diverse type of material. When the bibliography is completed in LIBRIS, new and exceptional conditions for broad historical and cultural-historical research will be offered.