Finna brings together the materials of Finnish archives, libraries and museums under one user-friendly service. The service was created as part of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s National Digital Library project (2008–2017). The National Library of Finland maintains the service and develops it in constant collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and various other partners.
Finnish archives, libraries and museums can provide their materials and services include in the national Finna.fi search service or create their own Finna interfaces or online libraries. Finna is used by over 300 organisations, and new organisations are joining the service at a constant rate. The tools that are provided by Finna have been used to create over 80 organisation-specific interfaces and online libraries.
The archives, libraries and museums that operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Culture are free to join Finna at no extra charge. To join the service, the organisation must include the descriptive metadata for its materials in a system that enables the harvesting of the metadata via OAI-PMH protocol, and the organisation needs to have enough manpower to implement and maintain the service. Finna supports the following formats for the harvesting of the records: MARC 21, LIDO, EAD, Dublin Core and Forward.
Finna has been developed using open source software, and its source code is available for further use. The open API of the Finna.fi service, api.finna.fi, provides free access to the metadata provided by the participating archives, libraries and museums. The licence for the metadata that has been made available through the API is CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
An organisation that wishes to join Finna must first sign a service agreement with the National Library of Finland. After the organisation has signed the agreement, it becomes a member of the Finna consortium. The consortium is a coalition that promotes the providing of the materials and services of its members via Finna wider public consumption. Finna’s development process is guided, planned and monitored by a consortium group that includes representatives from the archival, library and museum sectors, the National Library of Finland, the Ministry of Education and Culture as well as interested parties that represent Finna’s users or partners.
More information:
finna-posti(at)helsinki.fi