History of the collection
The Norwegian Printing Museum was established on 29 August 1991. Before this time, the collecting and purchasing of objects had already begun under the auspices of Stavanger Municipality and Stavanger’s association for professional printers. The majority of objects, however, were collected by the museum foundation and during the period leading up to the museum’s opening in autumn 1993.
Stavanger’s printing industry grew parallel to its canning industry, and only in Oslo was there ever a larger printing milieu in Norway. The foundation for this robust printing industry was primarily the lithographic production of canning labels and other packaging for canning. As early as in the 1950s, the germinal idea for a printing museum in Stavanger emerged when professional printers realised that dramatic changes in techniques and printing methods were about to occur. In the 1970s, the full brunt of the technological revolution was felt: lead type and litho-stones were replaced with phototypesetting and computers. The desire to preserve the crafts and techniques that were disappearing was then rekindled simultaneously as government subsidies for semi-public museums spurred enthusiasm for preserving the monuments of industrial history.
In 1979, Stavanger’s cultural-heritage manager Einar Hedén took the initiative to preserve the printing facility P. Danielssens Boktrykeriet, located at Høleberggata 11. This was purchased by Stavanger Municipality in 1982. Around the same time, Jens Alfred Jørgensen from the professional printers’ association (Stavanger grafiske fagforening) became involved in preserving old printing equipment. The project lay latent for some years, but in 1988, Arts Council Norway (Norsk kulturrådet) made an official recommendation which listed technical and industrial cultural monuments it wanted to preserve. P. Danielsens Boktrykkeri was on the list, and this provided the foundation for the collection of the Norwegian Printing museum. Nevertheless, the main part of the collection was built through the efforts of the museum itself, the professional printers’ association and many volunteers during the time leading up to when the museum opened its doors to the public in autumn 1993.