Tampere University Culture and Research Archive TAKU
Overview
Tampere University Culture and Research Archive (TAKU) continues the work of Tampere University’s Folklife Archives, which were founded in 1965. The archive operates within the Faculty of Social Sciences and is located in the E wing of the Main Building (Päätalo) on the city centre campus.
The Culture and Research Archive is a service unit supporting research in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to serving Tampere University’s teaching, research and learning, the archive is also open to the public.
Following a recent reorganisation, the archive now operates within a renewed infrastructure designed to better support research and teaching. TAKU also hosts a viewing and listening station of the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI).
TAKU holds numerous collections of national and international significance. The most important of these is its unique oral history collection, which comprises approximately 20,000 hours of recorded material and spans nearly 150 years. Geographically, the collection covers the whole of Finland and includes oral history related to almost all fields of human culture, ranging from ethnology and culturally prominent figures to political history and the history of events. A significant portion of the collection consists of performance recordings made in connection with interviews with folk musicians.
In addition to the oral history materials, the archive houses extensive photographic and manuscript collections, including several archival entities of national importance. The photographic collection comprises approximately 200,000 historical photographs, featuring extensive bodies of work by prominent photographers as well as individuals who pursued photography as a hobby. The images relate to cultural history, political events and biography, and span a period of more than 140 years.
The manuscript collection includes an internationally significant and exceptionally extensive body of Finnish private correspondence from the Second World War (1939–1945), consisting of approximately 75,000 letters. In addition, the archive holds several personal collections related to music history, folklore and culturally prominent figures.