The French Academy of Sciences has always taken care to preserve its records. However, it was not until the 1880s that its collections, including those for the oldest periods, were reconstituted.

The archive service kepps :
- the minutes of meetings, the oldest of which date back to 1666 and which form a long continuous sequence right up to our era;
- the numerous memoranda, reports, letters and manuscripts of all kinds, read or presented during meetings;
- the biographical files relating to all the members of the French Academy since its creation. These include manuscript items, iconographic documents and documentation;
- the files concerning awards. The mission to award prizes dates back to 1720;
- the sealed depositions (plis cachetés), a procedure dating back to the 18th century which enables authors to guarantee their rights as far as the anteriority of a discovery is concerned;
- the papers of the Comittees and Commissions;
- personal archives, notably those of Lavoisier and Ampère.

The French Academy's archives also retain printed sources, such as the various compendia of the French Royal Academy of Sciences, and the collection of Comptes rendus of the Academy created in 1835. Some of these are digitised by the National Library of France.

The archives also contain a collection of portraits, busts, and medals.

List of some books written from the documents of the archives

Portraits of physicists and "World Year of Physics 2005"

Keeper of the archives
Florence Greffe
Tél.: 33+ (0)1 44 41 43 85 - Fax : 33+ (0)1 44 41 43 54
archivesacademie-sciences.fr