History of the library

An ever growing collection

At the time of its foundation in 1928, the library was already strong of the Gaston Darboux and Nicolas Goffart collections, 138 journals and every French theses in mathematics since 1850. Soon many donations came in, including books and manuscripts from the Faculty of Science of the University of Paris. The library also inherited over 600 mathematical models, made from plaster, wood, wire or thread. Some of them are exhibited permanently in the library's hall. Most of those models were created in Germany by Ludwig Brill and Martin Schilling between 1890 and 1920. Those made of wood were built in Paris between 1912 and 1915 by Joseph Caron, Professor of descriptive geometry at École normale supérieure (ENS).

Pierre Gauja, secretary of the French Academy of Science managed the library until 1954. Paul Belgodère took over the management until 1986 and—with the assistance of Denise Lardeux—transformed it into a large and internationally renowned library. The book holdings grew from 4 000 to 23 000 and the journals from 120 to 250. Since then, the library has established an international reputation. As an homage, the reserve of old and precious books has been named Salle Paul Belgodère, while the library's exhibition space is called Salon Denise Lardeux.

Since then, the library has been managed by Hélène Nocton (1987-2003 / CNRS crystal medal 1997), Liliane Zweig (2003-2007 / CNRS crystal medal 2007), Brigitte Yvon-Deyme (2007-2015), Alexandra Miric (2015-2020), Nayara Gil-Condé (2020-2023) and Henri Duvillard (since 2024 / CNRS crystal medal 2023). And for 38 years, from 1981 until 2019, Dominique Dartron provided invaluable assistance to those in charge.

In addition to the historical collections of Gaston Darboux, Nicolas Goffart, Paul Belgodère, and Émile Borel, the collections have grown over time thanks to significant donations from personal libraries. These include those of Jean Babaud, Raymond Bloch, Adolphe Bühl, Joëlle Cicchini, Jean-Pierre Kahane, Harold Levine, Arif Mardin, Gérard Petiau, Jean Porte, Jean Richard, Jacques Riguet, and Michelle Schatzmann.

The library also holds a collection of about 800 rare books from the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Today, the library's collections concist of:

• 40 000 research monographs (including more than 3 000 unicas),
• 3 000 titles intended for a wider audience,
• 1 200 printed journals titles including 101 ongoing subscriptions,
• 2 000 theses in mathematics,
• 800 rare books from the 17^th and 18^th centuries,
• and the access to numerous digital resources (e-books and journals).

Focus on research and teaching

The library is open to researchers and teachers in mathematics, theoretical physics and/or the history and philosophy of these fields, and in particular to participants in programs organized by the Centre Émile Borel.

Our patrons are greeted in French or in English.

The IHP library is affiliated to Sorbonne Université Library. It is also an active member of the RNBM (French national network of mathematics libraries).

An exhibition space

Since the refoundation of IHP in 1994, the library regularly hosts various exhibitions. Sometimes featuring portraits of major scientific figures, sometimes exhibits combining the arts and sciences, these installations are now part of the cultural program of the Maison Poincaré, IHP’s mathematics museum.