16 Libraries and the Sámi population in Norway – Assimilation and Resistance

Abstract

Grenersen 16 Libraries and the Sámi population in Norway -Assimilation and Resistance Libraries, Assimilation and the Germ of a Sámi Public SphereIn this article I will ask the question: what role did libraries play during the early assimilation period towards the Sámi population in Norway?I will focus at the epoch from the late 1800s and up to the beginning of 1900, when the first organized political movements among the Sámi population were formed (Zachariassen 2013;Jernsletten 1986).This is an empirical question, and the methodological challenges are many, with the sources hard to find.In standard works on Norwegian library history the Sámi are not mentioned at all (Grenersen 2015).We must turn to the archives and see what can be found there.What we find in the archives are pieces of a puzzle that no one has tried to solve, yet.My findings in the archives fall into two categories.The first is related to the Directors of Education, Killengreen and Aas, and their reports from their inspection travels to Finnmark.The Director of Education was responsible for the implementation of the State's policy for primary and secondary education, and from 1904 to establish the boarding schools in Finnmark.Altogether 49 boarding schools were built over the next 40 years ("Internatskole for samiske barn" n.d.).In the directors' detailed "Inspection Reports" they also discussed the role of libraries in the assimilation policy towards the Sámi and Kven.¹The reports focused on the public and school libraries' potential as agents of assimilation and how reading Norwegian books could contribute to this (Killengreen 1887; Aas 1899).Then there are sources that point in an opposite direction: could it be that Sámi political "forerunners" or entrepreneurs used libraries -and the reading of books and periodicals -as mediums that gave them new and radical ideas on the Sámi condition and that libraries contributed to a Sámi public field where political and cultural issues were discussed?The sources are complete book lists and borrowing catalogues from Tromsø Teaching College ("Udlånsprotokol").There we find borrower accounts for the two Sámi political pioneers, Anders Larsen and 1 Kven is the Finnish-speaking population in Finnmark.In this article I will limit my discussion to the Sámi population.I will, though, use a few examples related to the Kven, where I feel it is necessary for the understanding of the case.The Kven was as much a target for the assimilation policy as the Sámi.

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