Collections
The library’s collections offer information, skills and recreation to all of the customers. Collections include a wide variety of different material, including:
- Non-fiction
- Fiction
- Material for children and young people
- Newspapers and magazines
- Databases and networks
- Audio books
- Films
- Music
- Language courses
- Maps
There are about 950 000 items in the collections. Most of the collections are in Finnish, but especially fiction can also be found in other languages. A great part, more than 80%, of the library’s collections are books. For the time being, there are no new electronic books.
Apart from the music books that are situated in the Music Department on the third floor of the Main Library, non-fiction written in English and other languages is situated amidst the Finnish non-fiction on the second floor of the Main Library.
Fiction written in English and other languages can be found next to the reading room on the third floor of the Main Library.
Databases
All material in the library is shown in the library database. You can search the database either by using the PC's in the library or at home through the Internet. In addition to information searches, customers can renew their loans, make reservations or give feedback on library’s services. To Library Database
In addition to the library's own database and printed collections, the library has a number of online databases. Databases are available for customers on the PC’s of the library. Most of the databases are in Finnish and are so-called reference databases, i.e. containing information on catalogue details, availability, and sometimes short resumes of books, articles and other materials, but not the actual contents, such as a full text of an article.
In addition to Finnish databases, the library has access to the following databases that are in English:
Available only in the library
- PressDisplay: Library PressDisplay provides access to 650 newspapers from 76 countries and in 38 languages. Here you can read a digital replica of today's newspaper! The database collects every issue for the past 2 months. Newspapers include The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Daily Telegraph among others. Check for the full list. (pdf)
- Oxford Music Online
- NetMot: multilingual electronic dictionary (Finnish, English, Swedish, German, French)
- Contemporary Authors
- EEBO - Early English Books Online (1473 - 1700)
- ECCO - Eighteenth Century Collections Online (1701 - 1800)
Available free in the Internet
Regional collection
The Regional Library collects narrative literature, poems and plays of authors from Central Finland.
Acquisitions of the regional collection include non-fiction depicting Central Finland, such as local and personal histories, communal and cultural life, nature, industry and commerce.
The regional collection includes magazines and newspapers that have been published or are being published in Central Finland. The magazines are in the form of original publications and the newspapers in the form of both original publications and microfilms.
Music recordings produced and performed by artists from Central Finland are acquired to serve as samples.
The regional collection includes small publications, for instance, tourist brochures, maps and programmes. The newspaper collection has been augmented with articles about Central Finland published by the newspaper Keskisuomalainen.
