The Library of the Labour Movement is a scientific special library located in Helsinki, Finland. The library’s wide collection mainly focuses on the labour movement, trade unions and labour history.

Opening hours
Tuesday-Friday 11:00-17:00
The library is closed on Mondays and weekends.

Address
Library of the Labour Movement
Sornaisten rantatie 25 A 1
00500 Helsinki, Finland
email: perinne (at) tyovaenperinne (dot) com
p. (+358) 09766429

For interlibrary loans, please contact us at our e-mail address. We accept IFLA-vouchers.

Collections

When the library was founded, The Finnish Labour Archives and The People’s Archives donated their libraries almost entirely to it. The most important parts of the book and booklet collections are the materials of the (mainly Finnish) labour movement and trade union organisations, ideological literature, biographical studies, business and cooperation of the labour movement, and working-class culture (theatre, music, sport, tradition, cultural work, press and fiction). The collections also include among other things literature on working life and general political and historical literature. There are about 115.000 monographies and 30.000 booklets in the library’s collections.

The periodicals collection consists mainly of magazines published by labour movement organisations and scientific periodicals. There are about 5.000 titles in the collection. There is also a separate Russian language collection. The video collection, with about 180 titles, consists of films that deal with mainly Finnish labour movement.

New acquisitions are focused on social policy and history, as well as literature on working class history and labour movement.

The materials donated by the two archives have been partially catalogued, alphabetically and/or systematically. Newer materials are catalogued in databases. There are now about 60.000 book titles and about 3.000 periodical titles in the databases. The library has also joined the HELKA-database, which can be accessed online.

Printed catalogues on some parts of the library’s collections are available. These are Internationals, cooperation, Spanish Civil War, Finnish American literature and the Russian collection donated by the Finnish Labour Archives.