Library

Our largest library collection documents Swedish immigration to North America and Swedish-American culture. The Center purchases all new works in the field as well as adds donations of older Swedish-American imprints to this collection. 

Special concentration includes topics on Swedish-American:

• Biography
• Literature and publishing
• Fine arts and music
• Religious life including denominational histories and church anniversary booklets

Also includes:

• Background perspectives on Swedish and Scandinavian emigration
• Histories of Swedish settlements in the U.S. and Canada
• Histories of and publications by Swedish-American organizations and institutions

The Scandinaviana Collection is a hybrid collection of books and some serial publications dealing with background conditions and features of the Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden.

Subject matters include Scandinavian:

• History
• Topography
• Education
• Literature and fine arts
• Church history and religions

The Nils William Olsson Collection is an exclusive collection that is strong in Swedish genealogy, local and regional history and is of particular interest to family historians and others interested in regional Swedish history and culture. 

Included in this collection are many Swedish works on noble families such as Elgenstierna's Den introducerade svenska adelns ättartavlor med tillägg och rättelse, Svensk Adelskalender and privately printed genealogy of Swedish families.

The C.W. Mortenson Collection consists of approximately 200 books on the Viking presence in North America.

This collection includes many of the standard scholarly works as well as fiction and several rare items such as C.C. Rafn's Antiquitates Americanae Sive Scriptores Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America, printed in Copenhagen in 1837 and Arthur Middleton Reeves' The Finding of Wineland the Good. The History of the Icelandic Discovery of America, published in London in 1890.

The O.A. Linder Collection was donated to the Augustana College Library in the late 1930s by Oliver A. Linder and was later transferred to the Swenson Center.

Linder was a former editor of the weekly Svenska Amerikanaren Tribunen published in Chicago. It complements the Immigration Collection with its holdings of Swedish-American literature, history, fine arts, journalism and press history, and religious life.

The G.N. Swan Collection was donated to the Augustana College Library in the late 1920s by Gustav Nelson Swan of Sioux City, Iowa and was later transferred to the Swenson Center. 

Swan was a key figure in Swedish-American cultural and literary circles at beginning of the 1900s.  Besides his involvement in local businesses, Augustana College, and the Augustana Synod, Swan served as the Swedish vice-consul for Sweden and Norway (1899-1905) and for Sweden (1905-1929) in Sioux City, Iowa.

Emphases of this collection include:

• Swedish and Scandinavian literature up to the 1930s
• Swedish literature in translation (English and other languages)
• Works by Tegnér 
• Foreign literature classics, especially Shakespeare and Dante
• General history of religions
• Swedish Americana

Also included are two pamphlet collections of over 700 separate publications from the 1850s to the 1940s on topics including World War I, banking and international monetary systems, Swedish regional brochures and travel guides, poetry and song collections, historical Sioux City souvenir publications, and Swedish-American concerns, events and landmarks.

See the pamphlet index on our Collections page. 

This Dr. Larry Scott taught Scandinavian Studies at Augustana College from 1981-2013. Most of the books in this collection relate to his teaching interests, including:

• Swedish Art
• Scandinavian Film
• Norse mythology and Icelandic Sagas