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This paper will present how a large-scale digitization and infrastructure project for tradition archives led to unexpected discoveries in our collections: realising that we had items and collections in our archive that nobody had seen (or cared to look for) for many decades. In other words, the technical procedure of digitizing archival material turned out to also be a valuable basis for knowledge production. We will use an example from the Norwegian Folk Museum, to answer the question: What types of knowledge production and what kind of knowledge does a digitisation process generate? We want to point to how the discoveries has created new opportunities in our research fields and for the archives themselves.
SAMLA is the Norwegian digital archive for the tradition and cultural history archives, containing the main collections from the three largest folklore archives in Norway: The Norwegian Folklore Archives (NFS) at the University of Oslo, The Norwegian Ethnological Research (NEG) at the Norwegian Folk Museum, and The Ethno-Folkloristic Archive (EFA) at the University of Bergen. The digital archive was built between 2020 and 2025, led by the University of Bergen with the University Library of Bergen responsible for the technical development. Important collections such as those containing the archive of famed folk tale collector Peter Chr. Asbjørnsen were secured. Large collections of tales and legends, songs, life stories, and folk belief are now made accessible and inter-searchable.
To a certain degree, SAMLA was a rescue mission: conserving through digitising some of the most valuable – and often fragile – documents from cultural history in Norway. SAMLA contains a wide variety of cultural expressions and practices from the majority population, minority populations, and indigenous cultures in Norway. When searching SAMLA, users browse through the original records that folklore collectors in the 19th and 20th centuries wrote down during their travels, in order to preserve and study culture and history. It is also possible to explore systematic and schematic collections, to map traditions and customs from around the country.
At least two types of knowledge are in play: what we looked for, and what we didn’t look for. The first type of knowledge is what we looked for; in a digitization process, the goal is often to uncover information about the material that makes it easier to work with and ensures a good digital product (Foldvik 2026). In short, this can be the condition of the document and how to handle it. Can it be unfolded to photograph the text? Does it contain any basic information as author, date and location which can be used as metadata? If making a digital transcription; what language and type of handwriting is it in?
The second type of knowledge is what we didn’t look for but emerges as we often uncover new or unexpected information which arises naturally from working closely with a text. When investigating a document, our eyes often fall upon small details which makes us compare it to other material or knowledge we have about a phenomenon, location or person, or is completely new insights. Even though this can be referred to as a secondary knowledge production, the information is far from secondary, but can uncover a whole new insight to archives, documents and context (Foldvik 2026).
We, the scholars, archivists and technical staff in SAMLA knew the archives well. We knew that not all parts of the collections were well-organised, and that a large part of the digitising process would have to entail ordering the physical archive to make the items ready for scanning and annotating. Norsk Folkemuseum contributed with the full series of questionnaires sent from the Norwegian Ethnological Research from 1947 to 2016, on topics ranging from traditional agriculture through brewing and celebrations to histories about the modern tooth fairy. While working on ordering, scanning, and annotating these materials, lesser-known materials were also unearthed in the archives.
One of these discoveries was the document hidden in archive number NEG Varia 11349. While browsing collections and items annotated as containing Sámi tradition, this document popped up: an original manuscript from the amateur folklorist Yngvar Mejland. He collected information on the Sami board game Sáhkku in the 1940s, and sent it to the archive. Sáhkku is a dice game played for two players, known from large parts of the Sami area, from Lule Sami in the south to Skolt Sami in the northeast, and has existed in many local variants (Berg-Nordlie 2019). Sáhkku has suffered from both the Læstadianism ban on gambling, the harsh Norwegianization policy, and the WWII burning of Troms and Finnmark (Berg-Nordlie 2019). Thus, the game was almost – but not completely – out of living tradition when enthusiasts in recent times took steps to revitalize it (Berg-Nordlie & Tolgensbakk 2024). The joy of rediscovering Mejlands original has prompted the archive and the museum it belongs to into finding ways of disseminating knowledge of the board game, and will be doing so in collaboration with Sami organisations and individuals in the coming years.
The two types of knowledge mentioned above is closely connected; the secondary insights and discoveries could not be made without a primary objective of gathering information. And the new insights enrich our knowledge of the archival material and can be used to complement the basic information we initially were looking for. By including the ways of how the human mind works and makes connections when investigating archival material; digitising is not solely a technical process, but an undertaking that produces knowledge.
Bibliography
Berg-Nordlie, Mikkel. 2019. «Sáhkku.» Sáhkku | Reaidu.
Berg-Nordlie, Mikkel & Ida Tolgensbakk 2024. Hva med å lære et eldgammelt samisk brettspill? – SAMLA
Foldvik, Therese. In press 2026. Digital nærlesing – fra gotisk håndskrift til digital tekst. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning.
