About the Search Service

The National Archives' digitization work

The National Archives is working to make archival materials digitally accessible. Of approximately 75 miles of archival documents, about 7% have been digitized. These seven percent have been digitized for various reasons:

• They are the most requested archives.
• They were digitized as part of research projects.
• They were scanned to protect the originals from wear and tear.

The National Archives’ public digital archives are primarily available on two platforms: the Digital Research Room and the National Archives Database (NAD). The material is either scanned and published as images (facsimiles) or recorded in searchable databases. To promote data reuse, some databases have been made available as Open Data or downloadable datasets. Access to all of this is gathered in the Digital Research Room.

The National Archives Database (NAD) provides an overview of archives in Sweden. Many archival institutions publish their archival inventories here. The National Archives’ inventories include links to our scanned materials. Note that there are additional access points to this material in the Digital Research Room.

The scanning is primarily conducted at our Digitization Center for Cultural Heritage Materials in Fränsta, Västernorrland. This is a national resource for government agencies and other public organizations and is the largest of its kind in Europe.