Wilfred Østgulen opened the session by highlighting the National Library’s mission to ensure the preservation of published materials from all publishing platforms for future generations, making it the foremost database of knowledge about Norway and Norwegian affairs. Already in 2005, the library decided that their collection must be digitalized in order to maintain its relevance and be accessible to the public, and is a major success-story in Norwegian digitization that few are aware of. The library supports these efforts with a large team of IT experts and its own data center in Mo i Rana, where collections are preserved digitally in three copies across two locations on different technologies, with digital fingerprints used to detect any changes to files.

With the library’s vast collections forming one of the most comprehensive datasets of Norwegian knowledge and culture, Østgulen underscored how responsible AI development depends on access to high-quality, representative data. He noted that as AI systems grow increasingly capable, the cultural context they are built upon becomes ever more important. Ensuring that Norwegian language and cultural nuances are included in emerging AI language models is essential for safeguarding national identity in the digital era. Østgulen emphasized that preserving cultural integrity in AI systems is not only a technological challenge, but also a societal responsibility.

The Norwegian government has increased funding for the National Library in recent years and has proposed a further boost in 2026 to support continued digitalization efforts and the development of a Norwegian LLM, currently in process.