The plan to incinerate over 200 years' worth of archived newspapers at the University of Oslo was paused this week, following an article by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten publicising the intended destruction. 
The unwanted archives take up 3 kilometres of shelf space, and neither the University nor the National Library are interested in retaining and storing the years of history any more. 
The collection consists of both Nordic and non-Nordic newspapers, including Manchester Guardian, New York Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Le Figaro.
A planned incineration of them in 2002 was avoided by moving them into a warehouse owned by Nils Christian Bang at Follum Grend, near Ringerike. Edgar Learn Borg, retired supervisor of the collection, continues to be involved in the preservation of the collection which hasn't been accessed by researchers since its move.
The order came again to clean up the store.  Frode Meinich, technical director of the University, says that the collection is not unique, and indicated that the University needs temporary storage for some antiquarian furniture during renovation of a music facility  of the University.
In 2007, Frode Meinich told Aftenposten that a national program of infrastructure modernization was desperately needed. "For the time being we are managing to keep the ship afloat, but if something serious isn't done in the next few years we have a major problem".

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Libricide plans on ice at University of Oslo