History
The first edition was published in 20 volumes between 1876 and 1899. The first edition is known as the "Iðunn edition" because of the picture of Iðunn on the cover. The second edition was published between 1904 and 1926 in 38 volumes, and is thereby the most comprehensive encyclopedia published in the Swedish language. It is popularly known as Uggleupplagan ("The Owl Edition"), because it has an owl on the cover. Two more editions were published before 1957. The copyrights have since expired from the two first versions, and they are now in the public domain.
In the 1990s, persons active at the Linköping University started Project Runeberg with the intention of providing digital copies of books significant to the culture and history of Nordic countries – just as Project Gutenberg aims to do with English literature. In 2001, technology had improved enough to allow a full scale digitalization of the entire encyclopedia using scanning and OCR (optical character recognition) techniques. All 45,000 pages (counting both encyclopedias) have so far been scanned and OCR read, and are publicly available on the Runeberg Webpage. However, there still remains much proof reading to be done.
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The logo of the first edition (1876-1899) features a depiction of Iðunn.
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The Owl Edition (1904-1926)
Read more about this topic: Nordisk Familjebok
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—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)