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I november 2023 hölls en temadag om specialsamlingar vid Riksantikvarieämbetet i Stockholm, ett arrangemang i samarbete mellan Vitterhetsakademiens bibliotek och Uppsala universitetsbibliotek. Denna volym har utmynnat ur de föredrag som presenterades under dagen och rymmer sju texter som belyser aktuella frågor och forskningsperspektiv kring kulturarvsmaterial vid svenska minnesinstitutioner.

Supported by the legal ideas of Hugo Grotius, the Swedish armies exploited opportunities to seize books as spoils of war from conquered enemies to an unparalleled degree in the seventeenth century. They took books from countries such as today’s Latvia, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Denmark, distributing the goods to recently founded institutions and private manors in their native country. In this work, a summarizing overview of these plunders is given: from which regions and owners full libraries or selected books were taken during the conflicts, where they subsequently tended to end up when arriving in Sweden, and how they have been received and curated over the years. It is argued that it can be questioned whether large portions of the spoils have served any proper user needs in their new contexts.

In the eighteenth century, the entomologist and industrialist Charles de Geer (1720–1778), who spent his formative years in the Netherlands, established a library in his manor at Leufstabruk. Since 1986 this library has been owned by Uppsala University Library. This volume contains essays on different aspects of this historical book collection, as well as of similar country house libraries in Sweden and abroad. It is the result of an international symposium held in Leufstabruk and Uppsala in June 2022.