​The Printed Materials Collection

The Printed Materials Collection contains information on the Finnish Parliament and the parliaments of other countries and their activities. The legal collection contains Finnish and international statute books, case law and jurisprudential literature. Literature on the social and political sciences includes materials on politics, social history and international relations. The Library also includes documents and publications issued by many international organisations and official documents and publications published by Finnish authorities.

Collection locations

The collections are located both in the library halls open to the public and in Closed Stacks. Literature available for loan and reference library publications are organised systematically.

Open Access Collections

Open Access Collections are located in library halls. Publications available for loan are available on open-access shelves and are checked out at Customer Services.

• The basement houses literature from 1998 onwards, periodicals from 2005 onwards and committee memorandums
• The periodicals' room on the Customer Services floor houses periodicals up to 2004
• The most recent newspapers are available in the open space on the Customer Services floor.
• Classification of the Open Access Collection

Reference Library

The Reference Library is located in the Reading Room on the Customer Services floor and in the library room outside the Reading Room. The Reference Library includes parliamentary documents dating from 1809, Finnish statutes, legal literature from different countries, legal commentary and reference books on the library’s fields of specialism and dictionaries.

Collection in the Closed Stacks

A part of the library collection is located in a Closed Stacks facility to which customers have no access. It is possible to loan out items published in 1900 or later as home loans. Publications from the Closed Stacks are requested using the Selma collection database and the requested materials can be picked up from the Customer Service desk. The Closed Stacks shelf catalogue (in Finnish) contains more information about the collections and the materials available for loan. More detailed information about some of the collections and their content has been recorded and links to these are included in the catalogue.

The Arkadia Collection

The Library of Parliament’s Arkadia Collection contains books on politics and parliamentary work as written by Members of the Finnish Parliament, dating back to the first Finnish unicameral Parliament in 1907. The Collection is located in the library hall and can be browsed via the SELMA database using The Arkadia Collection literature search. Books in the Arkadia Collection are not available for loan. Some of the titles in the collection have separate lending copies.

The Wanha collection

The Wanha Collection contains a small number of books, mostly on jurisprudence and history, which were published before the Great Fire of Turku in 1827. The Collection also includes later, historically significant literature. Search for the books via the SELMA database using the Wanha Collection literature search. Books in the Wanha Collection are not available for loan.

Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman Collection

The Collection is housed in the Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Most of the Collection is reserved for the use of the Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman staff only. The materials are available for collection at Customer Services within 1–2 working days of placing the order.​​

​List of missing items

Items missing from the Library of Parliament collection are gathered in a designated List of missing items. The list is primarily composed of literature on jurisprudence and parliamentary affairs. Among its other functions, the List of missing items is also of assistance when books are donated to the Library of Parliament.

​Classification of the Open Access Collection

The Open Access Collection includes literature acquired after 1998. The publications are arranged according to topic. The collection is located downstairs.