Uppsala University

Uppsala University (Swedish Uppsala universitet) is a public university in Uppsala, Sweden. The oldest university in Scandinavia, it was founded in 1477 on the initiative of the Archbishop of Uppsala Jakob Ulfsson and the Swedish Regent Sten Sture, and with a papal bull from Sixtus IV. After a turbulent period following the reformation, with some periods of virtual extinction, the university rose to some significance with the rise of Sweden as a great power and a leading Lutheran state from the end of the 16th century and was given a relative financial stability with the large donation of King Gustavus Adolphus in the early 17th century.

University Library

Main article: Uppsala University Library

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The university library holds about 5.25 million volumes of books and periodicals (131,293 shelf meters), 61,959 manuscripts, 7,133 music prints, and 345,734 maps and other graphic documents. The holdings of the collection of manuscripts and music includes, among other things, the Gothic Bible manuscript Codex Argenteus.

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The most widely recognized building of the university library is Carolina Rediviva, the "revived Carolina", thus named in reference to Academia Carolina (see illustration), which held the university library from the earliest times until 1691, when it was moved to the upper floor of Gustavianum, where it miraculously survived the great city fire of 1702. In the mid-18th century, there were plans to move it back to the Academia Carolina or a new building on the same spot. The building was demolished in 1778 to make place for a new library, but this was never built and the area next to the cathedral where it stood is today a lawn. The present Carolina Rediviva was built in a different place and completed in 1841.

Related Topics:
University library - Carolina Rediviva

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The present university library system comprises 19 branches, including the one in the Carolina building.

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