The collection of the Library of the Labour Movement has grown since the acquisition of the founding library collections of Finnish Labour Archives and People’s Archives. The most important parts of printed collection are the (mainly Finnish) labour movement and trade union organisations’ publications, ideological literature, biographies, political and social history, and working-class culture (theatre, music, sport, tradition, media, and literature). The collection also includes local and general history and literature on cooperative movement and working life in general. There are about 120 000 monographs and 30 000 booklets in the library’s collections.
The periodical collection consists of printed newspapers and journals published mostly by labour movement organisations and other related instances. The collection also includes scientific journals.
Most of the collection is catalogued in the Helka database.
If you have a book in mind that you’d love to see in our collection, send us a suggestion: kirjasto@tyovaenperinne.fi
Special collections
Collection of digitised and electronic material
A selection of older titles from the library’s collection have been digitised, and are accessible in the Helda open repository managed by Helsinki University. You can also find more recent electronic open access publications on Helda.
Physical special collections
- Theme collections
- Political Internationals
- Spanish Civil War
- Ameriikka (collection of Finnish-American literature)
- Co-operatives
- Finnish Work Environment Fund -Collection
- Digital Collection of Miina Sillanpää’s Writings
- Personal libraries
- O.W and Hertta Kuusinen
- Raoul Palmgren
- Yrjö Kallinen
- Atos Wirtanen
- J.W. Keto
- Old library collections donated from various workers’ associations