Telephone: (+47) 51 84 27 00
Fax: (+47) 51 84 27 01

E-mail: bibliotek@stavanger.museum.no

Opening hours:8.30am – 3pm

Personell
Library Supervisor: Karin R. Hausberg
e-mail: karin.hausberg@stavanger.museum.no

Librarian: Bente Kvame Hadland
e-mail: bente.kvame.hadland@stavanger.museum.no

Professional subjects
The library is an interdisciplinary research library and consists mainly of specialized literature within the museum’s professional subjects:

• natural history, zoology, especially ornithology
• the history of art and culture
• ethnology
• local history (especially Rogaland)
• maritime history
• the canning industry
• industrial and social history
• the museum system

Our opportunity to lend books
The library serves first and foremost the museum staff, but is also open to the public. Loans are somewhat limited, but the library’s reading room (6 places) is available, as well as copying facilities.

The library annually executes a considerable number of orders from other libraries both domestic and abroad.

History
The library was founded as early as 1877, but then only for the use of the museum staff. At that time the whole library consisted of 61 books, whereas 1988 it had more than 50 000 books, approximately half of them periodicals.

The library has obtained a large part of its collection through gifts and exchanges. Ever since 1891 the library has had mutual agreements with other scientific institutions regarding the exchange of periodicals, yearbooks and monographic series. Today the museum sends the Stavanger Museum Yearbook to more than 500 exchange connections, in Norway and abroad.

For a long time the library was administrated by the curators of the various departments. A librarian was first employed in 1966. At this time most of the library was moved to one location, and the classification and cataloguing of the books started. The UDC (Universal Decimal Classification) was the classification system chosen. In 1989, the library transferred from a card index system to the EDP-system Micromarc.

For a more detailed history of the library we refer to the article written by Thurid Wishman ‘The Stavanger Museum Library 1877-1977’ in the Stavanger Museum Yearbook 1976, pages 129-140.