The beginning of the national library, the great Royal library (Kongelige Bibliothek) at Copenhagen may be credited to Chris tian III. ; but to Frederick III. (1648-7o) is mainly due the collection of Icelandic literature and the acquisition of Tycho Brahe's mss., and also the present building (in the Chris tiansborg castle), begun in 1667. In 1793 the library was opened as the national library. Two copies of every book published in Denmark must be deposited here. The incunabula and block books form an important series. In foreign literature it specializes in the humanities. There are printed catalogues of the de Thott collection ; French mss., Oriental mss. (1846) ; the Danish collection (1875), etc. There are now 850,000 printed books and 30,000 mss. The Royal library has nearly completed publication of Bibliotheca Danica, a bibliography of Danish books, 1482-1830.
The University library (1482), destroyed by fire in 1728, but soon re-established, receives, since 1894, a copy of every Danish publication, and has 430,000 vols. and 7,000 mss., including the Arne-Magnean collection, specializing in the natural sciences. The Statsbiblioteket of Aarhus (1894) possesses about 270,000 vols.
and the Landsbokasafn Islands (National library) of Reykjavik. Iceland, about 118,000 printed books and 7,83o Icelandic mss. A State library commission supervises the State-supported libraries. An association for promoting public libraries was formed in 1905, and in 1909 the minister of public instruction appointed a special adviser.
Modern developments show, perhaps more clearly than else where.in Europe, a tendency to co-ordinate all the libraries.
Norway.—The Norsk Bibliotekforening in 1924 published a statistical account of 266 libraries (Handbok over norske Biblio teker).
The chief library in Norway is the University library at Oslo (Christiania), founded in 1811 by Frederick VI., with a large donation of duplicates from the Royal Library at Copenhagen.
There are now over 700,000 vols. in the collection. The Deich manske Bibliotek at Oslo was founded by Carl Deichmann in 1780 as a free library, and is maintained by endowments and by the city. It now contains about 195,000 volumes. The Free library at Bergen (1874) has 163,758 vols. and has been re-housed. The Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab at Trondhjem has also a large library.
Sweden and Finland.-Swedish libraries were surveyed in 1924 in Einar Sundstrom's Svenska Bibliotek.
The first Royal library at Stockholm, established in 1585, was given to the University of Uppsala by Gustavus II. Charles X.'s library was burned in 1697, and the present library was organized shortly afterwards. The Benzelstjerna-Engestrom library (rich in Swedish history) is now annexed to it. Natural history, medicine and mathematics are left to other libraries. Among the mss. the Codex Aureus of the 6th or 7th century, with an Anglo-Saxon inscription, is noteworthy. The library contained, in 1924, 460,000 printed books and over 12,000 mss. The Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, contains a library of medical books numbering over 6o,000.
The University library at Uppsala was founded as mentioned above by Gustavus Adolphus in 1620, from the remains of con vent libraries, and endowed. The mss. chiefly relate to the history of the country, but include the Codex Argenteus of the Gothic gospels of Ulfilas, published in facsimile by the library in 1928. Printed catalogues are: general (1814), foreign accession lists (annually from 1850), and Arabic, Turkish and Persian mss. (1846). The library now contains about 600,000 printed books and mss. The University library at Lund (1668) was based upon the old cathedral library. The mss. include the de la Gardie archives, acquired in 1848. There are about 145,385 vols. in the library. The Stadsbibliotek of Gothenburg (1890) contains about 240,000 vols., and has a printed catalogue.
Finland has the University library of Helsingfors (164o-1827), about 500,000 vols., and the parliamentary library (1872), 58,500 volumes.