Library and Archives
The American Swedish Institute’s Library and Archives is a warm and welcoming place to browse a sample of books about Sweden and Swedish America, perform scholarly research, or simply sit and read. Visitors peruse materials in Swedish and English covering immigration, traditions, arts, history, literature, music, food, as well as other topics. The collection includes books, photographs, manuscripts, audio recordings, and more. The collection is closed-stacks and non-circulating. Volunteers and staff are on hand to assist researchers in the use of the catalog and finding aids during regular reading room hours.
Reading Room Hours:
| Wednesday | 4–8 p.m. |
| Friday | Noon–4 p.m. |
| Saturday | 10 a.m.–2 p.m. |
*Requires paid admission (free for ASI members)
Researchers may request an appointment outside of regular Reading Room hours; volunteers and staff will do their best to accommodate these requests. Museum admission (free for ASI members) is required to use the Library and Archives.
The Library and Archives has undergone a remarkable transformation in the past few years. ASI received a Minnesota Legacy Grant to catalog its unique collection of books, a project which took place throughout 2011 and resulted in over 10,000 catalog records along the Library of Congress standards. Along with this huge step forward, the Library and Archives inherited its beautiful Reading Room, which is now paired with a newly renovated, state of the art stacks area to help preserve this one of a kind collection. The staff and volunteers continue to work on many ongoing and special projects to keep the Library and Archives healthy and growing, including cataloging library books, performing book preservation, indexing and describing archives collections, and assisting with research.
Contact
Researchers may contact the Librarian/Archivist Cassie Warholm-Wohlenhaus with questions about the collections, scheduling a visit, or general reference questions regarding Swedish and Swedish-American topics. Please keep in mind that staff time in the Library and Archives is limited, and the librarian may require one to two weeks to research and follow up on reference questions. Cassie Warholm-Wohlenhaus can be contacted by phone at (612) 870-3348 or by email at cassieww@asimn.org. If you do not hear back immediately, please feel free to follow up with an additional call or email.