There are numerous places to conduct philatelic research, such as public libraries and museums, in Northern Europe. Many postal museums have associated archives and libraries and work to make their collections accessible to researchers. Here are a few information resources that might be helpful for philatelic research.
Mariehamn City Library, Åland
Åland is an autonomous Swedish-speaking province of Finland that has been self-governing for 100 years. Since 1993 the Åland Post has been independent of Finland’s and issued its first stamp in 1994, quickly becoming a favorite of philatelists.
The Mariehamn City Library in the archipelago’s capital has two sections devoted to philately and postal history. The first section can be found in the Ålandica special collection reading room under the Swedish library classification system’s class Qj: Post och televäsen (Post and telecommunications). Relevant sub-classes are Qjf: Postväsen (Postal Service); and Qjfb: Frimärken (Stamps).
This collection of about 50 titles covers Åland’s postal history, the development of local and international postal routes, post office and postal marking handbooks, and catalogs. Much of the collection is in Swedish, though there are some multilingual resources. The second section is located within the main part of the library, also found under Qj, and includes general reference materials, Nordic and worldwide catalogs, and Luppa, the journal of the Åland Philatelic Association.
The library is located just two blocks northwest from the Mariehamn post office, which is located at Nygatan 6. Mariehamns stadsbibliotek: Strandgatan 29, Mariehamn, Åland. [email protected] or visit https://www.bibliotek.ax/-/mariehamns-stadsbibliotek. (This main library page easily translates to English on the web.)
The Finnish Postal Museum
The Finnish Postal Museum is in Tampere, Finland, about two hours north of the capital of Helsinki. The museum, originally located in Helsinki, moved to its present location in 2013.
The museum, part of the Museum Centre Vapriikki, has a permanent exhibition titled “Messengers” on the ground floor, a highly interactive history of the postal service in Finland from 1638 to the present, with audiovisual presentations and digital labeling offered in Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian (Figure 1). The first floor hosts temporary exhibits, currently on the quotidian pleasure of newspaper delivery and its role in our lives. Past exhibitions include postcards, military mail and mail art. The website also offers online exhibits on the topics of personalized stamps, postal uniforms, postmasters general and the correspondence of artist Tom, of Finland.
Figure 1. From the Messengers exhibitexhibit in the Finnish Postal Museum, courtesy of Juha Valkeajoki.
The museum’s collections are divided into four sections: physical artifacts, photographs and printed matter, stamps, and the library and archive, all of which are available to philatelic researchers.
The physical collection tells the story of the Finnish post through items as small as stamps and as large as postal delivery vehicles. The printed matter collection contains a variety of audiovisual materials, photographs, advertisements and postcards. The stamp collection includes a mounted national collection, a domestic reference collection, philatelic exhibits, as well as donations from philatelists. Many of the philatelic exhibits have been digitized and are available online, part of the museum’s special collections (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Digitized information on postal routes is available from the Finnish Postal Museum, among many other collections.
The library of the Postal Museum is Finland’s only specialized philatelic library and has a collection of more than 30,000 resources on the topics of philately and postal history. While the collection is generally international in nature, there is a distinct focus on Finland and Europe.
The library is organized using the Universal Decimal Classification, with most of the collection falling under class 656: Transport and Postal Service, but also makes use of local-level organization. The main divisions are general philatelic catalogs and reference material, general historic material, philately subdivided geographically, postcards, topical collecting, forgeries, cinderella material, periodicals and postal corporation publications such as all the Finnish Post circulars from the period that the government ran postal operations, which they have made available online.
The library has its own online catalog available in Finnish, Swedish and English, but is in the process of transferring the catalog to the Finland-wide union catalog, Finna.fi, administered by the National Library of Finland. This new arrangement will also allow for the viewing of certain digital objects directly via the catalog.
The archival collection includes rare documents such as royal correspondence, foundational materials from the establishment of postal routes, corporate material from Posti, the Finnish postal corporation, as well as deposits from some philatelic societies. An interesting resource is a card file of postal routes handstamps used by rural carriers and the accompanying handbook that decodes these markings.
Figure 3. Three bullets preserved from a 1907 robbery of a railway mail compartment, from the Swedish museum archives.
Digitalization projects at the library are ongoing, said Mikko Nykänen, head of information services and the museum’s deputy director. Like most libraries, the library at the Postal Museum saw an increase in demand for digital resources during COVID-19 pandemic. “We need to be more present in the digital world, especially now,” said Nykänen. He is currently creating a digital database of postal markings from the archive’s collection of about 50,000 handstamps.
The library welcomes visitors and research inquiries related to Finnish philately. The library is not located within the museum, but is a five-minute walk away. It is advisable to contact the collections department or the librarian for an appointment prior to visiting as most of the collection is warehoused at a third location.
Posti Museo: Alaverstaanraitti 5, Tampere, Finland, https://www.postimuseo.fi.
Postal Museum library: Lapintie 1, Tampere, Finland, [email protected]. (The museum and library main pages easily translate to English on the web.)
Swedish Postal Museum
The Swedish Postal Museum opened in 1906 and is in the Stockholm neighborhood of Gamla Stan or old town. The building has four levels of exhibition space: A little post office children’s center in the basement; “Your Post”, a history of the Swedish Post on the ground floor; temporary exhibitions on the first floor; and the library and the Treasure Chambers containing Swedish and rare international stamps on the second floor.
The museum has three main collections: objects and photographs, stamps and the library.
The museum has about 18,000 objects and about 100,000 photographs in its collection. Many of these items are on display in the museum and some can be viewed online at the DigitaltMuseum: https://digitaltmuseum.se/owners/S-PM, available in Swedish, English and Norwegian.
The Little Post Office, located in the basement, is a play and learning center for children, part of the extensive museum and educational programming for children. The museum has a staff that is very engaged with young visitors and throughout the museum, various exhibits have been designed with children in mind.
“Your Post” tells the history of the Swedish Post from its founding in 1636 to the present, including its corporatization in the 1990s and merger with the Danish Post as PostNord in 2009. One of the larger exhibits covers postal transportation, explaining that the mail is currently delivered by not only planes, trains and automobiles, but also by boats and even electric vehicles. While delivery is multimodal, the exhibit also mentions that rail transportation plays a key role in the delivery of mail in Sweden, noting that 70 percent of the mail travels by rail and most postal terminals are located on the railway.
Besides logistics, “Your Post” asks existential questions about personal connections and artifacts like letters and postcards that were often left behind after we die, but in the present day of email and text messages are now lost to time. One featured interview with a scientist says that his research will be remembered and known forever, but admits that likely he will not be, nor will his emails, so at least a couple times a year he sends cards and letters to those he cares for.
There are currently two temporary exhibits: “Hello!” (Hej!) and “Missing You!” (Laknar dig!). “Hello!” looks at human communication in all its forms, including handwriting, coding, non-verbal communication, Swedish Sign Language and even modern tools like typewriters and magic whiteboards. It also contains a hands-on exhibit on stamp production and design, including methods of engraving and tools used for printing. “Missing you!” explores emotional aspects of handwriting and hand-written messages. There is a postcard design center filled with art supplies and ideas to spark creativity and creative writing.
The museum’s stamp collection numbers about 4 million, not including about 90,000 postal stationery objects. Many are available to view online via the DigitaltMuseum portal. Others, including the national collection, are in the Treasure Chamber on the second floor. The Treasure Chamber is made up of two rooms: the first contains noteworthy foreign stamps such as those from Mauritius, pre-philatelic Swedish covers from 1636 to 1855 and early examples from Sweden from 1855 to 1936. The second room contains a mounted Swedish national collection that also contains several proofs, engraving plates and related materials.
The Postal Museum’s library, founded in 1944, is Sweden’s largest and only public philatelic research library. The collection has more than 60,000 monographs and journals that focus not only on Swedish philately and postal history, but also support worldwide research. The library catalog is online and functions in the Swedish, English and Norwegian languages.
The library uses the Swedish library classification system and collects resources in both Swedish and foreign languages. The collection is divided into general reference items, philatelic journals, philately subdivided geographically and postal history.
The postal history reading room contains an exhibition space, as well as maps and charts – important pieces of postal history, according to Hanna Nydahl, the museum’s archivist, who notes that the post office was the second government agency, after the military, approved to design and publish cartographic records in Sweden. These maps are also accessible online via the DigitaltMuseum portal. The collection is rich in information on early Swedish and regional postal history. There are postal bulletins and yearbooks, as well as the history of the museum and its collections. Another important resource within that room are annual bibliographies for the museum library as well as other philatelic libraries and collections.
In addition to the open stack philatelic library, the museum also maintains closed stack museological and postal corporation collections, such as employee publications and even railway timetables. These collections, however, are integrated into the main library catalog and are accessible through the librarian.
Figure 4. City map of Vänersborg, Västergötland, from 1745, drawn and colored by hand. Courtesy of Swedish Postmuseum.
The museum is temporarily closed for renovations and is scheduled to reopen November 1. In the time of renovations, the library will focus on cataloging the collections with a focus on exhibition catalogs.
Postmuseum: Lilla Nygatan 6, Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden. https://www.postmuseum.se/.
Library: [email protected]. (Both listed websites translate easily to English.)
The Author
A.M. LaVey is a New York-based archivist interested in philatelic information, postal semiotics, and philatelic objects in archives, libraries and museums. LaVey received a grant from the Association of Slavic, East European Studies to spend the summer of 2021 at the American Philatelic Research Library increasing the accessibility and discovery of Belarusian, Russian, Soviet and Ukrainian resources.