The Swedish government’s work with archives and libraries has a long history. The first regulations for the National Archive (then, the Royal archive) were formulated in 1618, and the Royal Library has similarly ancient origins. National archive policy is intrinsically connected to the provisions for public access to official and public documents guaranteed in the Swedish constitution (see chapter 4.1.1), while library policies are connected to central aspects of Swedish cultural policy, such as equal access to culture, and public education. As a central feature of Swedish cultural policy, several recent debates on cultural policy have been relevant to this area.
As established in the Library Act (2013:801) §2 “Libraries in the public library system shall work for the development of a democratic society by contributing to the dissemination of knowledge and the free formation of opinions. Libraries in the public library system shall promote the position of literature and the interest in education, enlightenment, education, and research, as well as cultural activities in general. Library activities must be available to everyone.” The same law also establishes that each municipality must provide its inhabitants with a public library. Other than municipal libraries, the legislation also covers school libraries, university libraries, regional libraries, and all other publicly financed libraries. In 2020, this included a total of 2201 libraries (35 fewer than the previous year). Physical visits to municipal libraries increased by 50 percent from 2021 to 2022, with a total of just under 46 million visits during 2022. During the same year libraries facilitated around 63 million loans of books and other physical media, and just under 3 million loans of electronic media. This represents a partial return to the situation before the Covid-19 pandemic (National Library of Sweden 2023). The coordinating government agency for this sector is the National Library of Sweden, which also collects all printed works published in Sweden.
The library related issues which have been discussed in the last few years include access to school libraries. According to the official library statistics of 2022, approximately 48 percent of pupils in primary and secondary school have access to a school library with at least part-time staff (National Library of Sweden 2023). For 2024−2026, the government allocated SEK 40 million annually to support municipal libraries, which are otherwise funded primarily by the municipalities.
In municipal libraries, there has been an increase in harassment and threats towards librarians. A survey conducted by the librarian trade union, published in 2019, showed that a librarian’s work situation includes aspects of social unrest, insecurity and violations as well as hatred and threats, and that this situation was especially grave for female librarians, and in libraries in suburban areas (DIK 2019). Public debate concerning libraries and library policy has also included criticism of political bias in libraries. This criticism has been reoccurring, especially against left-wing political bias in the literature made available in libraries. A research study describing the left-wing bias of certain librarian organizations (Blomgren & Sundeen 2020) has also caused some debate. These debates have continued over the last several years.
Swedish public archives are regulated in the Archive Act (1990:782). The purposes of the state archives activities expressed in the Archives Act (Bill 1989/90: 72, amendment 1989/90: KrU29, rskr. 1989/90: 307) are:
- to increase the opportunities for access to public documents and other archival material,
- to clarify and strengthen the importance of archives as a source of information and knowledge about society and its development, and
- method and knowledge development within the archive area.
The coordinating government agency in this area is the National Archive.
In 2019, a government commission submitted the report Härifrån till evigheten: En långsiktig arkivpolitik för förvaltning och kulturarv (”From here to eternity: A long term archive policy for administration and cultural heritage”, SOU 2019:58), proposing that the Archive Act should be revised, updating archive policy for a digitalized society and focusing on 1) the right of the public to access public documents, 2) the information needs of administration and justice, and 3) the needs of research. The Commission also recommended that the Royal Library, the Swedish Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, the Swedish Performing Arts Agency, and the National Archive should be made jointly responsible for making a national inventory of audiovisual material and to investigate the conditions for implementation of the digitization of the material.
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