Scope

The core of the Old Swedish bibliography consists of texts in Old Swedish in manuscripts and editions. Most of the records in the bibliography consist of what might be called secondary literature/literary resources to the Old Swedish texts. This should, however, be understood in a broad sense, because the Old Swedish bibliography aims to be a tool for research and studies with different orientations. The starting point is a material – the Old Swedish texts – rather than any single academic discipline.

On the basis of the specified guidelines, publications are included rather than excluded. The Old Swedish bibliography can thus also contain some publications on e.g. runes, names, Latin, etc.

Geographically the Old Swedish bibliography starts from a definition of the Swedish Middle Ages which includes present-day Sweden, i.e. including the former Danish provinces, together with Gotland and medieval Swedish Finland.

Chronologically the bibliography starts from an established Swedish definition of Swedish Middle Ages, which starts later than the continental, considering mainly on the time circa 1000-1520 's. Since this is an Old Swedish bibliography, the accepted linguistic delimitation is also of the greatest importance, i.e. ca. 1225-1526.

Subject matter. The Old Swedish bibliography aims to include all aspects of medieval research (with the aforementioned exception of onomastics and Latin).

Language scope. Under the concept of Old Swedish the bibliography includes Old Gutnish and Old Scanian. The objective is that the Old Swedish bibliography should be comprehensive, but publications in the Nordic languages, including Finnish, as well as English, German and French have been prioritised.

The bibliography excludes – in addition to the already mentioned onomastics as well as texts in Latin and research into Latin — popular science journals (but see Links), other media than the printed word (such as internet resources, audio books, video, pictures, maps), publications targeted at children and adolescents, including teaching materials for primary and secondary schools, newspapers, fiction, esoterica, etc.