The Archives of the National Museum of Science and Technology are a goldmine for anyone interested in Sweden’s cultural heritage in the form of Sweden’s technical and industrial history.
The Archives contain approximately 1200 shelf metres of documents, 200,000 maps and drawings, and more than 1 million images and photographs. You’ll find letters, diaries, press clippings, brochures, records of meetings, books of account, images, films, maps and drawings from Sweden’s industrial history. How do technology and society interact? What was it like working in different industries? What lies ahead for technology in the future? It is our role to make these narratives available to the public.
Visit us
All are welcome to visit us and learn from the Archives’ documents, literature and images. Our reading room has 20 desks, WiFi, computers for searching in our databases, and a children’s corner with various things to occupy them.
We receive pre-booked visits on Wednesdays from 12.30–4.30 PM. Please contact us as soon as possible so we can prepare your visit in the best possible way and bring out the material you require. You can get assistance with copying on-site and we can also order copies of images.
Searching in the Archives
You can search for archival documents and images in DigitaltMuseum. The majority of our archival material is not digitised yet, however. But our archival inventory is searchable in the Archives database Klara.
In the free text field in Klara, you can search for a company name, the name of a person, the name of a product, etc. There is also an advanced search facility for searching at more detailed levels. The Archives are catalogued according to Sweden’s allmänna arkivschema (general archives arrangement) in different groups (series) of documents.
Parts of the Archives
- Technology and Industrial History Archive Documentation of Sweden’s industrial enterprises: work places, products, manufacturing and sales.
- Individual Archives Personal archives and the archives of smaller companies and associations within the Museum’s area of collection.
- Drawings Archive Contains 200,000 maps and drawings. This archive contains the constructional drawings of industrial plants; design drawings for mechanical devices once used in mines, agriculture, factories and workshops; and drawings of machinery designs, tools and products. The oldest of these documents is from the 18th century. Drawing collections from several prominent master-builders are represented: Håkan Steffansson, Falun; Albert Bergström, Finnshyttan; Wilhelm Wenström, Örebro; and Carl Johan Nilsson, Högåsen. Qvist & Gjer’s archive contains a large quantity of drawings for the construction of Sweden’s first power plant buildings. The drawings are fragile and require special handling. Phone or e-mail the Museum’s archivist at least two days in advance if you want to explore drawings.
- Climate Archive Photographs, positives, negatives, sound recordings, films.
- Official Archive The Museum’s own operations documents such as previous exhibitions and documentation projects.
Order material
If you want to view some part of our archival material, contact us with your request including the name of the archive, reference number and volume number.
If you would like copies of the documents, we can supply these for a fee. See our price list. If you would like us to send the copies to you, the cost of postage will be added.
Information not yet registered in Klara can be accessed via our manual card indexes in our reading room.