Multilingual Library

What is the Multilingual Library?

Multilingual Library offers people living anywhere in Finland a chance to read literature in their native language. Multilingual collection is situated in the Helsinki City Library – Central Public Library, but you can ask for these items through your own local library.

Multilingual collection contains library materials for adults, young people as well as children in more than 80 rarer languages. In most part the collection consists of books, but it also contains music, movies and magazines. We acquire material via a number of bookstores and publishers.

You can browse the multilingual collection through a Helmet-catalogue search. By using the language menu, the search offers you library materials only in the language you chose. Library staff will help you in your search.

We make tip lists of literature in different languages, and encourage parents and teachers to read with their children.

For libraries:

Libraries can ask for interlibrary loans from the Multilingual Library collections: kaukopalvelu@hel.fi.

We offer library-related texts in multiple languages.

Our brochure is available

Multilingual Library brochure is now available in 21 languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Kurdish/Kurmanji, Kurdish/Sorani, Nepalese, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Romanian, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, English, Finnish and Swedish.

Follow us and like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/monikielinenkirjasto.

You can find information on library services and Finnish society in general in many languages here: www.infoFinland.fi

Below are two short introduction videos to the Multilingual Library. 

The video is available in different languages: