"The Provenance History of Saami Book Collections in Finland" - Sophie Alix Capdeville
Channel: Bibliographical Society of Canada
Date: 2021-06-25

Sophie Alix Capdeville, Affiliated researcher at the department of Language and Communication Studies of the University of Jyväskylä

The research on the history of Saami book collections in Finland aims to analyse the "provenance" information of these books. This research is based on the work that I have conducted during the establishment of the catalogue of the Fellman family Lapponica Fonds, which was followed with my doctoral thesis on the Saami book history in Finland.

The provenance research methodology provides a better understanding of the Saami book history by the cross-analysis of book marks and archival material, which enlightens the use of books by different owners or other readers. Furthermore, it can help us refine our estimation of the situation of the book history in the Saami-speaking areas of Finland. The study of various book collections preserved in different institutions (libraries, churches or museums) provides a better overview of work that has been done at the time of the translations and the publication.

The owners occasionally left notes in the margins of their books, adding information that is interesting regarding Saami history. They might have also written documents relating to their collections. Therefore, the analysis of archives documents can provide a better overview of the use of the first Saami translations in Finland. This research allows us to present a large network in the Nordic countries, of people who carried out intensive correspondence by sending books or other publications to each other. Another important viewpoint is to enlighten the importance of Saami-speakers in this book history, which has too often been neglected by many historians.