Overview
total of 3600 entries are in an electronic database corresponding to about 10000 volumes (see The Entire Catalogue) . About 600 of these entries have been selected by Edward Göransson (see Further Reading) as the most important part of the collection. These are the books listed on this website (see Important Books).
The oldest book is from 1481 and there are an other eight incunables (books printed before 1500) in the collection. In terms of rare and valuable items, about 100 books are kept under extra secure conditions.
The library as well as this website is arranged according to the classification system of Hjalmar Sjögren. There are 26 topics covering a wide variety of fields in basic and in applied science but areas such as travel, geography and biography are also represented.
The collection reflects the interest of Hjalmar Sjögren as shown by the following list of topics with their weight:
- Geology (26%)
- Mineralogy (13%)
- Mining, petrography, and metallurgy (14%)
- Mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy and mechanics (18%)
- Geography (11%)
- All other topics (18%)
A significant portion of the geology and geography books are Russian publications.
The distribution of the books along the timeline is approximately as follows:
- 1481-1750 (12%)
- 1750-1825 (20%)
- 1825-1900 (45%)
- 1900- (23%)
About 30% of the space of the library is taken up by periodicals.
Related material
Over the years some fifty classics of science have been purchased as facsimile copies.
These books are not part of The Sjögren Library but are housed at the same premises.
A list of them is available on request.
