Oral History Archive of Finnish Parliament

The Oral History Archive currently consists of more than 450 interviews with former MPs. Permission is required to use the material, which is located in the Parliament library, for research purposes.

The Oral History Archive is managed by Researcher Joni Krekola, tel. +358 9 432 3464, e-mail: firstname.lastname@parliament.fi.

​Using the Oral History Archive

The Oral History Archive of Finnish Parliament is available for use by permission only. Permission to access these interviews is granted on an individual basis by the Director of the Library for research purposes based on applications and research plans. Permissions are granted for Master’s thesis research, provided that the thesis topic falls under the remit of Parliamentary studies. Once the researcher has been granted permission to access specific interviews, he or she is also entitled to access the indices of other interviews.

The veteran MPs whose interviews are included in the archive have the right to restrict the use of their interview material. Currently, only some five per cent of the interviews have restricted access.

All the interviews of former MPs have been transcribed into text format from audio tapes and audio files. The original recordings may also be accessed by researchers.

​Research permit applications

Research permit applications should be delivered to the on-duty officers at Customer Services or to the researcher in charge of the Oral History Archive. We aim to process applications as soon as possible. The interview transcriptions are available for permit holders only. According to the general principles of the Oral History Archives, interview material may not be printed or copied without express permission from the Director of the Library. There is no restriction on taking personal notes on the materials.

Reference practices

Researchers using the Oral History Archive must comply with referencing practices appropriate for their field. Mentioning the name of the interviewee in a text or footnote is allowed unless the interviewee has expressly prohibited it. The reference should provide the name of the interviewee, the date of the interview, and the title and location of the section of archive: Oral History Archive of Finnish Parliament, Library of Parliament.