Experience a bit of Norway without traveling overseas. Visit the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, housed in 15 historic buildings in downtown Decorah, Iowa. The Vesterheim is the largest museum dedicated to a single immigrant ethnic group in the United States.

The Vesterheim Museum was founded in 1877 as a natural history collection at Luther College. As they learned of the collection, Norwegian-American immigrants began donating items from their homes. In 1925 the Norwegian government expanded the museum's collection with 8,000 pounds of Norwegian artifacts -- carved and painted wooden objects, household textiles, clothing and metal working. Norwegian government documents identified them as a gift "to the Norwegians in America, in the care of Luther College," said Carol Hasvold, museum registrar and librarian for the Vesterheim Museum Library. Janet Blohm Pultz is museum director.

In 1967, the Norwegian-American Museum incorporated, becoming a separate entity from Luther College. In 1977 it added Vesterheim to its name, "a name frequently used by relatives in Norway to refer to the western home of emigrants in America," Hasvold said.

Today the museum owns not only the 15 buildings in downtown Decorah, but also a farm and two churches all of which provide museum visitors with glimpses into the immigrants' spiritual and domestic lives. According to Hasvold, the museum's mission is to collect, preserve, study and interpret/exhibit materials relating to Norwegian and Norwegian-American history, fine and folk art, religion and emigration/immigration. The museum has more than 21,000 objects in its collection. A Norwegian folk art section is a major focus of the Vesterheim collection, which also includes objects brought by families from Norway, items made or used by the immigrants in America and Norwegian-American fine art.

The Vesterheim Museum Library reflects the museum's mission with its reference section of modern and historic books covering the immigrants' lives, history, art and religion. "We also have an historic books room. Some of the books are genuinely rare, but in a broader sense they are books as artifacts, books from immigrant homes," said Hasvold. "These books reflect the interests of the Norwegian immigrants in religion and literature, with many editions of Norwegian-language Bibles brought from Norway, as well as published in this country." The collection also includes books by Norwegian authors, published here and in Norway, and books by European and American authors translated into Norwegian.

"We have an archival collection with records and correspondence especially related to our museum collection. This includes approximately 20,000 historic photographs related to Norwegian immigrants in America," Hasvold said. She estimates the collection is 10,000 volumes, which the staff -- one librarian and a student assistant -- began cataloging in 1991. To date, approximately 7,000 books have been cataloged. Vesterheim, contracting through BCR, uses OCLC for its cataloging. Because its collection is mostly ethnic and historic, a large portion of the cataloging records entered into OCLC by the staff are new records, Hasvold explained.

"The visibility we gain via the national database (OCLC) is important to us in letting people know that the museum and library exist as resources," Hasvold said. Vesterheim serves as a resource for several hundred people annually who study immigrant history and Norwegian folk art such as rosemaling, woodcarving, knifemaking and weaving, and who research family genealogy through the museum's Genealogical Center in Madison, Wisconsin. The library staff eventually plans to add the genealogical resources to the online database.

Check out the Vesterheim Museum's web page at www.vesterheim.org.