Nordic Museums Screensaver
The Nordic Museums screensaver shows a rotating gallery from DigitaltMuseum, the shared catalogue of Norwegian and Swedish museums. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Nordic Museums screensaver works
The saver reads the source described above and draws it on a canvas — no account, no tracking.
A rotating gallery from DigitaltMuseum, the shared catalogue of Norwegian and Swedish museums. Captions come through in Norwegian or Swedish because that is how the museums catalogued them, and the API key defaults to the public demo key the project publishes.
It refreshes on a schedule, so what you see stays current.
Colours and any options can be changed in settings; nothing is stored beyond your own browser.
About DigitaltMuseum
DigitaltMuseum is an online platform where museums in Norway and Sweden publish images and information from their collections, mainly art, photographic and cultural-history material. It is developed and operated by KulturIT and has been running since 2009, and it also offers a public API, which is what feeds the gallery. More than two hundred museums contribute, so a single search can mix very different collections.
Items arrive with metadata supplied by the museums themselves, typically a title and description, often with details such as place, person or date. Because the cataloguing is done in the local language, captions appear in Norwegian or Swedish, and the wording can follow older cataloguing conventions rather than modern style.
The gallery is a sample rather than a curated exhibition, so what you see is whatever the platform returns at that moment. Dates can be approximate, place names may use historical spellings, and a missing description usually means the museum has not written one. Many images are in the public domain or under Creative Commons licences, but terms vary, so the item's own record on DigitaltMuseum is the reference for rights and provenance.
A worked example
A rotating gallery from DigitaltMuseum, the shared catalogue of Norwegian and Swedish museums. Captions come through in Norwegian or Swedish because that is how the museums catalogued them, and the API key defaults to the public demo key the project publishes.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display.
- Every value on screen comes from the live source — nothing is simulated.
- Press ESC to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real data?
- Yes — it comes from the source named on this page and is refreshed on a schedule.
- Is a key needed?
- A public demo key is used by default; you can paste your own in settings.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- Why are the captions not in English?
- They are shown as the museums catalogued them, in Norwegian or Swedish. The saver does not translate them, so the original wording and spelling are preserved.
- Can I reuse these images?
- Many are public domain or Creative Commons, but the licence is recorded per item and varies. Check the record on DigitaltMuseum before using an image elsewhere.
- Which museums are included?
- Any museum that publishes through the shared platform can appear, from large institutions to small local collections, depending on what the search returns.