Who says library-poets don't rock the world?
Read what the National Biography of Finland says in the opening of the long, informative biographical essay of Volter Kilpi:
On Independence Day 1992, Volter Kilpi's Alastalon salissa ('In Alasto's Parlour') was voted the best work of Finnish literature to have appeared since Finland gained independence. A classic writer long pushed out of public awareness had finally earned his place at the summit of Finnish literature...
(It continues) One of his very first publications, however, was an article on the organisation of the popular library movement that appeared in 1898. And in the same year, Volter Kilpi began his library career at the University of Helsinki Library. During his more than twenty years there, his work included cataloguing the Nordenskiöld Collection of books and maps. In addition, Kilpi served from 1906 to 1911 as the librarian of the Student Union's library and from 1912 to 1918 as assistant librarian at the Helsinki City Library. He thus had a wide range of experience with libraries when he moved to Turku early in 1919 as a librarian at that city's municipal library. But his greatest work in the library field was achieved after he was appointed the first librarian of Turku's Finnish-language university in November 1920, later becoming its head librarian.
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