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The world's oldest indigenous newspaper – can now be digitized

Through the project Digitizing the Sami People's Archives, Region Norrbotten is helping to create the conditions for the world's oldest indigenous newspaper to be digitized and made available to both the public and researchers. An important building block in and for the Sami cultural heritage and democracy.

The Sami people

The newspaper Samefolket has been published since 1904 and is currently the world's oldest indigenous newspaper. It is also the only magazine available for adults on the Swedish side of Sápmi. The magazine is used as important source material for researchers around the world. Over the years, the newspaper's editors have collected old newspaper issues in boxes that have since been stored in various basements. Prior to work on the book Samefolket en sámisk tidnischista 2019, manual work began to go through all the magazines. The content included, among other things, approximately 50 unpublished photographs and image negatives. A preliminary project was carried out to map out what measures were required to save this historical content. Contact was established with Stockholm and Umeå universities, the Nordic Museum, the National Archives and the Royal Library, which also provided a certificate in support of the project.

Clear project plan

The project Digitizing the Sami People's Archives is based on a clear project plan where staff from the Sami People Foundation and consultants will work on the project continuously. The Regional Development Committee has decided to contribute SEK 500 to the project. To ensure that the work is carried out according to scientific methods, expertise from universities, government institutions and authorities will be involved. The project starts in June 000 and runs until May 2022. The project is based on the Sami People's overall gender equality work.

Can be read by the public

When the project is complete and all journals are digitized, the public and researchers will be able to access images, newspapers and other documents on a website. Knowledge dissemination about all the material will take place through seminars and lectures. The final result will be presented in a report and in a photo exhibition.