News

The National and University Library of Iceland, Þjóðarbókhlaðan, will open on May 4 2020, after being closed since March 16, due to ban on assembly, because of the Covid-19. The library will be open with limitations due to the assembly ban. These include a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people and that a…

On 23 April we mark 100 years since Íslensk–dönsk orðabók (the Icelandic–Danish Dictionary) was published; it came out in two volumes in 1920–24. The book has 1,052 pages and contains 114,000 headwords. The dictionary is a key work in the history of Icelandic lexicography and is still the largest Icelandic defining dictionary ever made. All…

The steering committee of Iceland Consortium for electronic subscriptions, supports ICOLC’S Statement on the Global COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Library Services and Resources. The statement’s aim is to help publishers of scientific knowledge to understand how the current COVID-10 epidemic affects the information community worldwide and also to suggest approaches that can be…

The manuscript collection welcomes all kinds of personal reflections regarding the effects of the coronavirus disease on people’s everyday lives. For further information, please send us an e-mail at handrit (at) landsbokasafn.is.

The National and University Library of Iceland will be closed to guests for four weeks starting March 16 2020 due to the assembly ban. While the library building is closed, library staff will do their best to provide services to library users through telephone and digital channels. The library web chat service is open from…

Hagþenkir,  the Association of Non-fiction and Educational Writers in Iceland conferred on Wednesday 4 March it’s special award for academic work of outstanding quality  at a ceremony in the National Library to Björk Ingimundardóttir for a book in two volumes about parishes in Iceland called Prestaköll, sóknir og prófastsdæmi á Íslandi I-II, published by the National Archives of Iceland.…

Over the past year, students and teachers at the University of Iceland have gained much wider access to e-books. This is mostly thanks to agreements made on the initiative of the School of Humanities: funding the School received from the University’s Centenary Fund, which is granted to strengthen research infrastructure, has been used to open…

Thursday February 20, Benedikt Hjartarson, professor of Literature at the University of Iceland had a lecture at the Library about the surrealist group Medúsa, taking into account international activities of Surrealists in the 1980’s in connection with an exhibition about Medúsa in the lobby of the Library. Benedikt is among other things one of the…

Sunday, February 16 at 14–16 PM, Guðrún Laufey Guðmundsdóttir and Halldóra Kristinsdóttir, experts from the National and University Library of Iceland will have a workshop on magic and magic manuscripts at the Culture House. There will be a short guide to the magic of the exhibition Point of View at 14 and 15 and in…

Winter Lights Festival is an annual event that celebrates both the winter world and the growing sun light after a long period of darkness. The program consists of light installations, culture and outdoor activities.  The festival provides entertainment for Reykjavík’s locals and guests alike. The programme reflects the many faces of Reykjavík’s capital area; with the…

The Icelandic Literary Prize was awarded for the 31st time at a ceremony at Bessastaðir, the President’s residence, on 28 January. Prizes are given in three categories: fiction; academic and general non-fiction; and children’s and young people’s books. This year’s winners of the Icelandic Literary Prize are Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson in fiction, for his book Selta:…

The Order of the Falcon On New Year‘s Day, the President of Iceland invested Jóhanna Gunnlaugsdóttir professor at the University of Iceland the Order of the Falcon for teaching and research in information science and records management among 13 other Icelandic citizens. The National and University Library of Iceland congratulates Jóhanna on this occasion.