2014-2016

Purpose of the project and any changes during the project period
The aim of this project was to complete the cataloguing of a large collection of older dissertations housed at Södertörn University Library (SHB). In this undertaking, we followed the routines that had been established together with Uppsala University Library (UUB), which houses a similar collection. In autumn 2014, RJ granted funding for the project. At the time, the uncatalogued part of SHB's collection was estimated to be ca. 4,500 dissertations. During the course of the project it became clear that the number of dissertations that needed cataloguing was larger than previously estimated. In addition, we discovered that some parts of our collection were in poor condition: some of the dissertations were damaged and others incomplete. As a consequence, we were forced to make a number of changes to the project's aims. In spring 2016, the aims became as follows: (1) to complete the cataloguing of the early modern dissertations produced at Uppsala University and thereby to facilitate the primary cataloguing conducted at UUB; and (2) to catalogue previously inaccessible synodic proceedings and dissertations produced at Swedish gymnasia. These decisions were based on requests made by scholars at SHB. These new aims also implied that we would not continue the cataloguing of (1) duplicates of the material already catalogued in the national catalogue LIBRIS, (2) the dissertations that in the near future will be catalogued by other libraries; and (3) the remaining material that is written in Swedish.

The results from the project and an account of these results
During the project period the following dissertations have been catalogued in the national catalogue and search engine LIBRIS and in SHB's local search engine SöderScholar: (1) older dissertations from Uppsala, (2) extra patriam dissertations written or defended by Swedish students at universities outside Sweden (these include dissertations from Rostock, Greifswald, Stade, Wittenberg, Giessen, Halle, Göttingen, Dorpat and other foreign universities), (3) dissertations from Swedish gymnasia, (4) synodic proceedings, and (5) a greater part of duplicates from Uppsala.
In total, ca. 13,500 older dissertations have been catalogued in the national catalogue LIBRIS as well as in SHB's search engine SöderScholar. These titles constitute about 86% of SHB's collection. Ca. 2,500 dissertations have been catalogued thanks to the financial support provided by RJ in 2014. The following parts remain uncatalogued: (1) older dissertations from Lund (ca 2,000 items), (2) duplicates from Uppsala (ca 250 items), and (3) dissertations from Helsinki and Turku (ca 50 items).
The decision not to catalogue these parts was taken in consultation with UUB.
The older dissertations have been difficult to access for a long time for several reasons. First, only limited opportunities have been provided by modern search engines and catalogues. Second, the dissertations have been difficult to approach because of their language, since a majority of them are written in Latin, a language that only a few scholars read today. It was paramount to the library that the project be carried out by a Latin scholar with a doctorate. Elena Dahlberg PhD, Latin scholar, did not have any problems working with these Latin, and in some cases Greek, titles and cataloguing them thematically. A large part of the dissertations are now searchable through LIBRIS as well as through SHB's SöderScholar. Now, when the dissertations have been made more easily accessible, interest in them has grown considerably. Researchers from such widely different disciplines as church history and media and communication studies have been in touch with us in order to obtain copies of old dissertations housed at SHB. In addition, this project has facilitated the work of another big project being currently carried out at Södertörn University, "The Academic Culture in the Baltic Sea Region during the Early Modern Period". Now some of its participants are able to make on-site consultations of their sources in our library. In the near future, this scholarly project will present its final results in a collective volume to be published by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.
SHB was the first library to catalogue the so-called "gymnasial dissertations". Scholars from the newly established discipline of the history of pedagogy have now started discovering this little-known material. A PhD candidate from the University of Gothenburg, Axel Hörstedt, is currently writing a dissertation about these early modern texts presented at Sweden's oldest gymnasia in Västerås, Kalmar, Gävle, Gothenburg, Linköping, Norrköping, Skara, Stockholm, Strängnäs and Växjö. We also hope that the same kind of interest will develop in our synodic proceedings in connection with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.

Unforeseen technical and methodological problems
Already during the project's initial phase, it became clear that the material was more voluminous than initially estimated. Moreover, it transpired that a larger part of the duplicates were in poor condition. To make sure that these copies are complete and housed in the best possible way caused, on occasion, interruptions in the cataloguing. Approximately 2,300 dissertations remain to be catalogued.
SHB was the first to carry out the time-consuming primary cataloguing of many of the dissertations. This holds true for the above-mentioned gymnasial dissertations.

Integration of the work in the government agency, or organization, concerned and how the work will be pursued further
During the project, SHB maintained contact with UUB. UUB's aim is to make the dissertations available in digital form and accessible through LIBRIS and the digital scholarly archive DiVA, and thus searchable as full text on the internet. As SHB is further on in the process of cataloguing of its collection, it has minimized the amount of time-consuming primary cataloguing that UUB' staff would otherwise have to do. They have thus been able to proceed to digitalization more quickly.
The material that remains uncatalogued consists of the dissertations that are easy to catalogue for non-Latinists. This holds true for the duplicates, the titles of which are already registered in LIBRIS as well as dissertations written in Swedish. Early modern dissertations originating from Lund University will in due time be catalogued by Lund University Library and the staff at SHB can thereafter use these posts for their secondary cataloguing.

New research issues that have been generated through the project
Thanks to our collaboration with UUB the project is now known about internationally. Up to now, three larger international symposia on early modern dissertations from the Baltic region have been held. In May 2010, SHB organized the first symposium. In autumn 2013, the second symposium was held at UUB. In April 2016, the third larger symposium was held. Entitled "Early Modern Academic Culture", it was hosted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. The speakers at the symposium represented such widely different regions as the Baltic, North America and Scotland.
In 2014, a new scholarly series, Bibliotheca Neolatina Upsaliensis, was established by Peter Sjökvist (SHB, since 2012 UUB) and Krister Östlund (UUB). The aim of the series is to highlight Neo-Latin literature as an important part of our literary and scholarly heritage. The first volumes include editions of two older dissertations, translated into Swedish and supplied with a commentary. During 2016, at least two more dissertations will be edited in the series. Scholars from various countries have contacted the editors with requests to edit Neo-Latin texts in this series.
Elena Dahlberg, who was employed by SHB to catalogue the collection, has presented this project at several conferences, contributing to SHB's visibility internationally. In March 2015, Dahlberg gave a talk at the Sixth Book Historical Week held at Jyväskylä University, Finland. In October 2015, she presented the project for Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies in Innsbruck, Austria. This highly reputable institute is now planning its own project on early modern dissertations, which in turn may lead to collaboration between SHB, UUB and some of the Austrian university libraries.

Links to personal websites
Through LIBRIS, which is Sweden's national union catalogue, it is now possible to see the exact number of dissertations from SHB's collection as well as their titles. Thanks to an agreement between LIBRIS and WorldCat, which is the world's largest catalogue of libraries run by The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), SHB's collection will in due course be more visible in an international context.
The project is presented on our website: http://www.sh.se/p3/ext/content.nsf/aget?openagent&key=projekt_1302537245684
UUB refers to their collaboration with SHB as regards the cataloguing of our collections: http://www.ub.uu.se/samlingar/aldre-tryck/tidigmoderna-dissertationer-i-fulltext/
We have advertised our collection to a wider public via social media. SHB's former chef Karin Grönvall allowed us to publish texts elucidating our collection's historical and cultural value on her professional blog: http://shbiblioteket.se/bloggen/?tag=dissertationer
Popular posts about the dissertations have been published on SHB's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sodertorns-hogskolebibliotek/101187633285620
The following article was produced at an earlier stage of the project: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:214401/FULLTEXT01