page_title: National Archives of Finland
section_title: Library
hierarchical_section_title: National Archives of Finland / Library
caption_attribution_description: English: Old reading room of the National Archives of Finland
context_page_description: The National Archives of Finland is a Finnish government agency under the Ministry of Education and Culture. It is responsible for archiving official documents of the Finnish state and municipalities. It consists of three locations in the capital Helsinki and seven former regional archives, which were incorporated into the National Archives in 2017 and have since been its branches.
  The task of the National Archives is to ensure official documents forming a part of national heritage are preserved. It is the official Finnish authority in archiving, and promotes the preservation of documents located in private archives. In addition, the National Archives provides their stored documents for research use and participates in research and development activities. The National Archives is also the authority in heraldry. It ratifies all heraldic emblems used by the government, municipalities and church, and flags used by yacht clubs and military units. Its library has special collections on archiving, heraldry and sigillography.
  The archives was created in 1816 as part of the Senate of Finland. The present main building in Helsinki was built in 1890.
context_section_description: The library of the National Archives specialises on archiving, document diplomacy, heraldry and sigillography. Its collections include reference and source books, official publications, literature on the history of Finland and the surrounding areas, justice, management and social science as well as personal and family histories. The library serves primarily research based on archives and documents, customers wanting to retrieve information and on-duty staff. The library is responsible for all literature and other material necessary for customer service and activities at the archives. In its field of expertise, the library of the National Archives is the only library that is a part of Finnish national library network.
  The library's collection comprises about 334,000 volumes from Finland and abroad and around 200 magazines in various languages. In addition to literature on archiving, history and source books, the library has a large collection of books on heraldry and sigillography, and it also has a historically significant amount of literature printed prior to 1850. The collection is mainly expanded with books on archiving, document management, archive usage and heraldry. Whenever possible, key pieces of literature about basic research of the history of Finland are also acquired. Donations received by the library mainly cover the topics of genealogy and local history.
  Books in the open collection are freely available for use in the reading rooms. Publications in the closed collection must be ordered for use. Home loans are not allowed. However, it is possible to order material to be delivered to other branches of the National Archives, and it is also possible to acquire reproductions. All material in the open collection and all serial publications have been imported into Erkki, a database for Finnish special libraries maintained by the National Library of Finland. The importing of stored books into the database is also underway.
caption: The old reading room at the National Archives' main building in Helsinki.
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