Archive of the International Mathematical Union

Weclome to the Archive! Its official name is “Archive of the International Mathematical Union, Berlin, Germany”. The archived material is physically preserved at a facility established at the IMU Secretariat in Berlin and equipped to serve this purpose. Digital records (including the IMU website) are kept safely on a long-term storage system. All archived material is registered in an archive database to make it searchable and accessible, labeled according to its category of confidentiality.

The aim of the IMU Archive is to record and reflect the activity and history of the IMU, to keep records of all aspects of the International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICM), and to leep record of, and reflect the activity and history of the commissions and committees of the IMU, namely:

  • IMU Executive Committee (IMU EC)
  • International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI)
  • Commission for Developing Countries (CDC)
  • Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC)
  • Committee for Women in Mathematics (CWM)
  • IMU prize committees
  • IMU ad hoc committees

as well as any future commission or committee.

The IMU Archive serves mainly to support the work of the IMU Executive Committee. The material is also available for historical research. Some documents, such as those concerning IMU prizes, are subject to certain restrictions in accordance with the IMU Archiving Guidelines.

With the establishment of a permanent IMU Secretariat in 2011, all archival material has since been permanently located in Berlin. On the occasion of the inauguration of the IMU Archive at the IMU Secretariat in Berlin, Olli Lehto gave a speech on the IMU Archive´s history.

The records of the IMU were sorted and organized for the first time at the archive of the University of Helsinki in 1996, which today is known as the Helsinki Subfond (SF1) of the IMU Archive in Berlin, published in the IMU Bulletin 40, 1996. Since then, the content and scope of the archive have greatly expanded. It has changed from paper letters and documents to mostly digital records. 

Olli Lehto in IMU Archive

The Helsinki Subfond (SF1) was supplemented with other subfonds, mainly from IMU Presidents and Secretaries of the terms since the first catalogue, as well as from officers of the commissions and committees. A long-term storage strategy has been implemented to safeguard the growing email archive and born-digital documents. Additionally, pictures, books and artefacts enrich the collection of the IMU Archive. However, there are still gaps in the inventory.

Interested persons or organizations are invited to support the collection of the IMU Archive by offering documents, photos, books, or other material, in digital as well as analogue representation, which may fill gaps in the documentation of the history of the IMU and its commissions and committees.