National archives of digitally preserved cultural materials

The national archives of digitally preserved cultural materials can now be accessed from the Library of Parliament. The collection includes radio and television programme archives, digitised periodicals and newspapers papers from the years 1810-1944, and website archives.

​Materials accessible from the dedicated workstation

Radio- ja TV-archive

The Radio and TV archive, known as RTVA, contains archived radio and television programmes dating back to 2009, including all the content from the principal radio and television stations. Further information: the National Audiovisual Institute.

The Web Archive

The Web Archive contains Finnish web pages dating back to the year 2006. The service was opened in 2009. See the web pages of the National Library of Finland for further information.

Digitised newspapers and journals

There is open access to digitised newspapers from the years 1771-1929 and journals from the years 1810-1929 at the web page digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi . Newspapers and journals released after 1929 are only available locally at the Library of Parliament, the National library, the libraries of the University of Turku, Åbo Academy, the University of Jyväskylä, the University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu and Kuopio) and the University of Oulu, and at the National Audiovisual Archive.

The digitalisation status of different periodicals varies. You can check the situation of each periodical from the list of periodicals.

List of the digitised newspapers
List of the digitised journals

​Use of materials

The digital material in the archives can only be accessed locally from a designated library workstation. The workstation is located in its own separate room and can be reserved at the Customer Service. Customers from the Finnish Parliament have priority in the use of the workstation.

For copyright reasons, no digital copies of the material may be taken, but printing is allowed.

The collection of cultural material for use by researchers and others in need of information is mandated by the Act on preserving and archiving cultural material (1433/2007) and the Copyright Act (404/1961).

The National Library of Finland and National Audiovisual Archive are responsible for collecting the content of the digital archives and making it publicly available. The archive material may be used in the customer premises of the libraries offering access, as well as in the libraries of the University of Turku, Åbo Academy, the University of Jyväskylä, the University of Eastern Finland, and the University of Oulu, each of which serve as legal deposit repositories in the ordained nationwide collection of cultural material. Access to the radio and television archive is also available at the Folklife Archives of the University of Tampere.