Holding a large and diverse collection, the North Ostrobothnia Museum is one of the oldest cultural history museums in Finland. The six main collections and their sub-collections contain nearly 100,000 objects, more than half a million photographs and approximately 80 shelf metres of archive material.
The primary geographical areas we work in are Oulu and North Ostrobothnia. Our focus is on material that sheds light on the everyday life and conditions of local people, business and industry in the area now and in the past.
In the “TAKO” Network for the Preservation and Collection Cooperation of Professional Museums, our fields of responsibility are youth culture, designers from North Ostrobothnia, the Star Boys tradition and women photographers of the region. The museum also has a strong national standing as the repository of the tar tradition and the life’s work of the writer Samuli Paulaharju (1875–1944). Samuli Paulaharju’s studio is part of the museum’s collection.
The photo material of the North Ostrobothnia Museum features images of people, cities, buildings, landscapes and events. Paper documents, on the other hand, are only accepted into the collection with after a consideration. As a rule, the museum does not store books and magazines in its collections.
The museum’s collections are mainly accumulated through donations and, at the museum’s discretion, purchases. Everyday phenomena are increasingly also recorded by means of contemporary documentation, such as interviews, photography and video recordings.
Marja Halttunen
Conservator (Object collections and wooden buildings)
