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The University Archive of Innsbruck

The University Archive preserves the historical records of the University of Innsbruck which was founded in 1669. It was not until the end of the 18th century that a continuous record collection was established.  Only a few records from the founding century have survived, such as the oldest document, a list of students of the Faculty of Theology ("Matricula Facultatis Theologicae Oenipontanae ab anno MDCLXXI"- until 1740), which began in 1671, or the diaries of the Faculty of Theology and Law, which also began shortly after 1670 and were administered by the respective deans.

Until 1968, the university archive was managed on a part-time basis by employees of the rector's office, such as Rudolf Steiner, who had rendered outstanding services to the archive since the 1920s, as well as by individual professors such as Alfred Ritter von Wretschko, a legal historian who was appointed to Innsbruck in 1899, or Hermann Wopfner, an historian of Austrian history appointed in 1908.

Franz Huter, Wopfner's successor in the chair of Austrian History, has, in view of the university's anniversary in 1952, as honorary head of the archive, both brought together the scattered records in separate cellar depot rooms in the main building at the Innrain, and at the same time tackled the systematic research of Innsbruck's university history. Gerhard Oberkofler, for many years head of the archive from 1968, listed the historical holdings in detail for the first time in 1970 in an archive inventory.

For years the archive has been collecting not only the administrative files but also the scientific estates of lecturers and researchers at the University of Innsbruck. Among these bequests are many of the works of nationally and internationally renowned scientists, such as the philosophers and psychologists Franz Hillebrand (1863-1926) and Theodor Erismann (1883-1961), the mineralogist Bruno Sander (1884-1979), the mathematician Wolfgang Gröbner (1899-1980), the physicist Ferdinand Cap (1924-2016), the chemist Erika Cremer (1901-1996) and the jurist Hans R. Klecatsky (1920-2015).

Today, the archive serves primarily as the "modern" administrative archive of the university, i.e. as a collection centre for the current records of the administrative departments.