The Dagsbrún Library at the Reykjavík Academy

The library in brief

Holdings: Over 8,500 titles and 11,700 volumes are listed in Gegnir, the Icelandic online library catalogue.
Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 13:00-16:30.
Location: Hringbraut 121, 5th floor (enter from the 4th floor).
Telephone: +354 562 8560.
Board of directors: Ian Watson, chair (Reykjavík Academy), Þorgerður Þorvaldsdóttir (Reykjavík Academy), Þorleifur Hauksson (Reykjavík Academy), Guðmundur Þ Jónsson (Efling) and Anna Torfadóttir (City of Reykjavík).
Employees: Ian Watson and Anna Jensdóttir.
Sponsors: Efling – stéttarfélag and Faxaflóahafnir

The Dagsbrún Library is a specialized collection of material on the Icelandic labor movement, as well as a general reference library for the Reykjavík Academy. The library offers good working conditions for those researching the history of the labor movement, the welfare system, and industry in Iceland. The Dagsbrún Library is owned by the Efling labor union, but has been housed at the Reykjavík Academy since 2003.

Collections

Well over eight thousand titles from the library have been entered into Gegnir, Iceland's online library catalog (www.gegnir.is). Almost all of the library's original holdings have now been processed, though a few pamphlets and propagandistic works remain. The heart of the library's collections are newspapers, periodicals, books, and other material connected with the labor movement. But the scope of the collection is really somewhat broader than this and the library has a good general collection of material on Icelandic society in the twentieth century.

Among other holdings are the newspapers Alþýðublaðið and Þjóðviljinn, the main Icelandic newsletters and periodicals from the late 19th century up into the 20th century, the government periodicals Alþingistíðindi and Stjórnartíðindi, and a large number of newsletters, brochures, and pamphlets from Icelandic political parties and the labor movement.

The collection's original nucleus was the personal library of Icelandic labor movement leader Héðin Valdimarsson, and some of the material was originally owned by his parents, Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir and Valdimar Ásmundsson, including a collection of eighteenth-century works.

Twentieth-century books make up the largest part of the collection, and include both domestic and foreign titles that reflect the political history of the library. Among these are the complete works of various figures in Marxist philosophy.

The goal of the Dagsbrún Library is to be an active research library for those interested in political and labor history in Iceland, with a special emphasis on the labor movement. The library is also a general academic social science collection and a reference library for the Reykjavík Academy.

Temporary list of uncatalogued material. The library has about 3,000 uncatalogued books, many of them in English, German, the Scandinavian languages, Russian and Esperanto and many but not all relating to the labor movement in countries outside Iceland. The library has created a simple list of these books on this website to allow scholars at least minimal access to them. Please contact the librarian if you are interested in looking at a book on this list or if you would like to have a book catalogued.

The library's collection of periodicals from the Icelandic labor movement is incomplete in parts and the library is interested in filling the gaps in its collection.

Facilities for visitors

The library has working space for users, including a computer for visitors, Ethernet plugs for laptops, and a scanner.

Work tables in the library can be rented for ISK 6.000 per month.

It is possible to hold small meetings in the library.

Members of the Reykjavík Academy who have offices in the building may borrow books, but they may not be taken out of the building.

Books for sale

The library has a number of books for sale, mostly duplicates that have been removed from the collection. They may be browsed online and purchased over the Internet.

Financing

The Efling trade union and the Reykjavík Academy signed an agreement on 27 November 2003 under which the Academy took on the management of the library. The library has its own budget within the Academy. Efling funds an employee who works 40% of full-time, and the Reykjavík Academy pays the rent for the library quarters, but otherwise the library's income comes entirely from grants from its sponsors. These have included the city of Reykjavík, Orkuveita Reykjavíkur, and Faxaflóahafnir. Several corporations have also given the library small grants. The library's board of directors includes representatives from the city of Reykjavík, the Efling labor union, and the Reykjavík Academy.

History of the Dagsbrún Library

The Dagsbrún Library is over a half-century old. Its nucleus was the personal library of Héðinn Valdimarsson. Héðinn was one of the most important early leaders of the Icelandic labor movement and for a long time was the president of the Dagsbrún labor union, as well as the head of the Olíuverslun Íslands oil company and the first chair of the Icelandic Socialist Party. He was also a keen book collector and many of his books originally belonged to his parents, Valdimar Ásmundsson (an editor) and Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir (who was for many years the chair of the women's organization Kvenréttindafélag Íslands).

Héðinn died in 1948. The library was formally founded on the 50th anniversary of the Dagsbrún labor union on 26 January 1956, when Guðrún Pálsdóttir (pictured at right), Héðinn's widow, gave the union her husband's library as a memorial to him. The library was formally opened at Freyjugata 27 in Reykjavík, in a building belonging to the masons' and electricians' union, on 10 December 1960 and contained 3415 volumes. From then on the library was housed in various places in Reykjavík, particularly in Dagsbrún's premises on Lindargata. From the beginning, the collection was looked after with deserved care, and librarians meticulously catalogued the collections on typed index cards in the fashion of the time. The library was open to both members of the Dagsbrún labor union and others. Ultimately, though, the union lacked a proper space for the collection and it was packed away in boxes and placed in storage after Dagsbrún, which by then had become Efling, moved to Sæbraut in Reykjavík at the end of the 20th century.

On 27 November 2003 Efling and the Reykjavík Academy signed an agreement whereby Efling continues to own the collection, but the Reykjavík Academy houses it and manages it on a daily basis. That same day, the library opened its doors to scholars and to the general public in the Reykjavík Academy. By 2011, the reorganization and computer cataloguing of the collections was complete.

The bulk of the library's collections has always come through gifts, sometimes from authors and publishers but more often from individuals. The library's largest single gift came from Þórir Daníelsson (pictured), who was the library's curator from 1973 to 1998, after his death in 2008. Among other individuals who have given substantial gifts to the library over the years are Geir Jónasson, Ásta Björnsdóttir (widow of Þorsteinn Finnbjarnarson), Eyjólfur R. Árnason, Runólfur Björnsson, Guðrún Bjarnadóttir, Skúli Skúlason and Ágústa Jónsdóttir, Ásgeir Pétursson and Dýrleif Árnadóttir, Sverrir Kristjánsson, Eðvarð Sigurðsson, Selma Hannesdóttir and Þorvaldur Þorvaldsson.

Dagsbrún Lecture Series

Since 2003, the library has organized an annual Dagsbrún Lecture on a topic related to the history of the labor movement. Below is a list of all of these lectures and the topics discussed.

2003 (27 November)
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland: Address at the opening of the historic Dagsbrún Library at the Reykjavík Academy.

2004 (27 November)
Gylfi Arinbjörnsson, managing director of the Icelandic Confederation of Labour: Ethics and the social responsibility of corporations.

2005 (19 November)
Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, head of the Social Democratic Alliance: Icelandic wage-earners during a time of internationalization.

2006 (23 September)
Conference commemmorating the centenary of the Dagsbrún Labor Union
The conference included seven papers and a panel discussion. The papers were then issued as a book, Samfélagsleg áhrif verkalýðshreyfingarinnar á 20. öld: framtíðarsýn á 21. öldinni (edited by Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson og Þórunn Sigurðardóttir), which was published by Efling and the Reykjavík Academy in 2007.

2007 (29 September)
Þorleifur Friðriksson, historian: About and for: writing about the past for the present. Based on the experience of writing the book Við brún nýs dags: Saga Verkamannafélagsins Dagsbrúnar 1906–1930.

2008 (30 April)
Þorgrímur Gestsson, author and journalist: Lecture on historical and journalistic methods in writing history, and on the role of the labor movement and of municipal governments in unemployment insurance.
Hörður Zóphóníasson, school principal: The Hlíf labor union: a century of history.

2009 (15 May)
Héðinn og húsaskjólið: a conference about Héðinn Valdimarsson and the development of worker's housing in Iceland.

2010 (11 November)
Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir, historian: Lecture on labor unions' involvement in Icelandic nationalist politics between 1901-1944. Based on her book Nýtt fólk: Þjóðerni og íslensk verkalýðsstjórnmál 1901-1944.

2011 (8 December)
Sigurður Pétursson, historian: The history of the labor movement in the West Fjords, 1890-1930. Based on his new book Vindur í seglum.