A short description of the Archive

There has been a mathematics institute at the University of Copenhagen since 1934, and over the years material left by mathematicians and related to the administration of the institute had piled up in the basement of the library. During the period 1996-1998 the material has been sorted and organized. It is divided into five categories:

1. Material related to the administration of the institute. A significant part of this material has been handed over to the National Archives.
2. Local publications, including preprints, master's theses, and other student essays, and lecture notes. Since the 1960s locally made lecture notes have often been used instead of textbooks in the mathematics courses, and these notes have usually only been sold to the students who attended the course.
3. Papers from people who have worked in the mathematical sciences. This includes papers of Harald Bohr (1887-1951), Werner Fenchel (1905-1988), Carl C. Hansen (1876-1935), Johannes Hjelmslev (1873-1950), Børge Jessen (1907-93) and Jakob Nielsen (1890-1959), to mention only the most important collections. The size and character of the contents of the collections vary.
4. Miscellaneous collections, including mathematical models and pictures.

Of course, most of the material is only of interest in connection with the history of Danish mathematics, but some of the collections, especially the papers of Bohr, Jessen and Nielsen and the archives of the Danish Mathematical Society, contain correspondence with foreign mathematicians and scientists. The Jessen papers are very extensive because Jessen saved almost everything. At the same time he was a central figure in Danish science during the period 1930-75.

Kurt Ramskov, 7 July 2000