Inger Larsson, Stockholm University

Aim

The aim of the project New Old Swedish bibliography has been to create an online bibliography, free of charge, covering all research dealing in some way with texts written in Old Swedish. The Old Swedish bibliography online is a re-working and continuation of the printed bibliography compiled by Robert Geete and Isak Collijn for the period up to 1944 and published by Svenska fornskriftsällskapet (The Swedish Early Text Society). The Old Swedish bibliography online covers the period up to 2011.

During the project period, the scope of the bibliography widened slightly compared to the original plans so that even publications with a relatively weak connection to Swedish medieval texts have been included. This has resulted in a somewhat broader bibliography covering research concerning the Swedish Middle Ages. This was motivated primarily by the fact that new directions of linguistic research require a broader understanding of medieval research. As a consequence the number of publications exceeds that expected, in addition to the fact that it is difficult to estimate the total number of publications without a bibliography of the kind we have now created.

Results

Three types of data have been recorded: a) information on medieval manuscripts written in Old Swedish, b) editions of these, c) literary resources, i.e. research on these texts in monographs, articles, reviews etc. At the completion of the project (Dec. 2012) the bibliography included about 18,500 publications. Almost 13,000 of these are included in the bibliography section of secondary literature, i.e. publications in a broad sense related to the Old Swedish texts. The Old Swedish texts' share of the bibliography amounts to more than 5,500 publications spread over 2,734 titles of Old Swedish texts preserved in manuscripts and 2,863 titles of editions of these texts.

For Old Swedish bibliography to be used as a tool that provides both researchers and students (in a variety of disciplines and with a variety of research objectives) with an overview of the broad field of research and its various parts, all publications are classified by categories specially designed for the purpose. These categories have been substantially adopted from Geete & Collijn's printed Old Swedish bibliography, which is thus included in the database, providing continuity that allows searches of publications from the 1800s onwards using the same principles of classification. Some new categories have been added, however. The categories of the search subjects that can be accessed under the search heading "Search by subject" are specially designed to meet the different needs generated by the parts: Old Swedish texts (i.e. manuscripts and editions) and literary devices (i.e. secondary literature).

Especially for the Old Swedish bibliography a search criterion named "title of work" has been designated for all publications of Old Swedish texts (i.e. manuscripts and editions), and a smaller number of items of literary devices (i.e. secondary literature). "Title of Work" indicates a cohesive name, designated latterly, for various medieval versions of what research has regarded as an opus. Examples of this can be "Ivan Lejonriddaren" or "Västmannalagen". It is also possible to use the manuscript signum as a search criterion. In addition to the subject search under "Search by subject" the database can of course also be searched for usual bibliographic information about the author, publisher, title, etc.

The bibliography is searchable in English and Swedish, and the website also contains information, both in Swedish and English, on various search functions, classification, titles of work, manuscripts and archives, etc.

New research questions generated by the project

The Old Swedish bibliography encompasses Old Swedish texts of manuscripts, editions of these and, in the broadest sense, literature related to these texts. It has become a powerful tool for anyone researching Swedish medieval texts, and fulfils a need for a specialist bibliography within this field of research.

The successful work with the Old Swedish bibliography inspired the inclusion of Swedish runology in the bibliography. This project was primarily funded by Riksantikvarieämbetets FOU-medel (The National Heritage Board) in 2012. The Swedish runic bibliography with more than 4,000 publications is included in the database. Work on the Swedish runic bibliography was able to benefit from the experience of the work on the Old Swedish bibliography and the active working time on the project could thus be minimized. The project Swedish runic bibliography is presented here: (http://www.raa.se/om-riksantikvarieambetet/fou-forskning-utveckling/pagaende-fou-projekt/kulturarvsinformation/)

The project Old Swedish bibliography has also raised the demand for a special expanded bibliography that would include works from the other Nordic countries. With the experience of the inclusion of the Swedish runic bibliography as a model, it would be possible in the future also to compile and merge similar bibliographies for our neighbouring countries.

The spread of results

Old Swedish bibliography is freely available on the internet. (http://x-ref.nordiska.su.se/pub/Default.aspx?item=18).

The bibliography has been presented at the annual meetings of Svenska fornskriftsällskapet (The Swedish Early Text Society) in Uppsala in 2011 and 2012, at the conference Swedish language history 12 (Stockholm, April 2012) and the Centre for Medieval Studies (Stockholm University, February 2013). The bibliography is included as a separate item in Libris (National library catalogue), and it is presented on Wikipedia.

Work integration of authority / organization and how the work will be passed on

The Department of Swedish and multilingualism (formerly the Department of Scandinavian Languages), Stockholm University, has undertaken to fund the Bibliography for another five years. Parallel discussions are, however, going on to find other and better solutions for the location but nothing is yet decided.

Unforeseen technical and methodological problems

No technical or methodological problems have been encountered during the project time. However, the database design has been an ongoing process, which has been made possible thanks to the flexible software.