(Archives and Library of the Swedish Labour Movement)
Upplandsgatan 4, Box 1124
S-111 81 Stockholm
Tel 46 08 4123900
Fax 46 08 4123990
The Archives and Library of the Swedish Labour Movement were founded in 1902. The Institute is a foundation whose principals are the Trade Union Confederation, the Swedish Government and the Swedish Social Democratic Party. The Institute is open to everybody. The Institute is a member of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI).
The term "Swedish labour movement" nowadays usually refers to the reformist part of the movement, the Social Democratic Party and the Trade Union Confederation in particular. Their archives form the majority of the archive body. However, other organisations, like the various communist and leftist parties, the Central organisation of the Workers (syndicalist) are also represented with their archives. The same holds true for the women's and youth organisations of all the left wing parties.
Another area of interest is those associations with a definite workers' culture (the Workers' Education Movement, the people's houses, the people's parks, the tenants' association, as well as news-papers and publishing houses).
The Institute concentrates on the archives of the central and Stockholm-based local organisations. Others are to be found in regional or local popular-movement archives.
Finally, a great many private papers of former and present party leaders, as well as those of other prominent members of the labour movement, are to be found. There, one finds a good many non-Swedish corresponents, mainly German and other Central European ones. There is a complete catalogue by ADP as well as several registers.
The Institute also holds collections of photographs, banners, posters and badges. They are registered in separate catalogues and accessible by ADP.
The library holds some 100,000 titles, including serial publications, 30,000 booklets/ pamphlets and 300 current periodicals. The library acquires literature on the praxis, theory and history of the labour movement. Other themes of interest, provided they have a labour movement angle, are: social sciences, social politics, social issues, peace and disarmament, history, biography, education, workers' education, literature, workers' literature (including fiction), political economy, technology, industry and communication, as well as art and music. Languages represented besides Swedish, are German and English. French, Russian and Spanish are less represented.
The library also holds all the printed material of the Swedish labour movement. There are two catalogues, one alphabetical and one topical. Starting from 1989, the new acquisitions are to be found in the national on-line database of Swedish libraries, the LIBRIS.
Archivists and librarians in charge of the reading room communicate daily with visiting scholars. The Institute serves as secretariat for the Labour Movement Research Council. The Institute also publishes a periodical, Arbetarhistoria, which appears four times yearly. Arbetarhistoria publishes abstracts from scholarly studies, reviews of current monographs and news from the Institute. Archivists and librarians also publish topical studies, separately and/or in various periodicals.
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Last updated 3 June 1998