Editing Royal Library, Denmark (section)

==Significant holdings==
The Royal Library acquires Danish books through legal deposit. The holdings include an almost complete collection of all Danish printed books back from 1482. In 2006, legal deposit was extended to electronic publications and now the library harvests four electronic copies of the Danish Internet each year. Danish books printed before 1900 are digitized on demand and made freely available to the public.<ref name="Larsen_2018">{{Cite journal|last=Larsen|first=Svend|date=December 2018 |title=Royal Danish Library |journal=Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues|language=en|volume=28|issue=3|pages=174–176|doi=10.1177/0955749019880118|s2cid=211440972 |issn=0955-7490}}</ref> As the National library, RDL has vast collections of digital material (Danish net archive, digitized radio and TV and newspapers etc.) which are relevant for scholars in many fields.<ref name="Larsen_2018" /> The library also holds a large and significant collection of old foreign scholarly and scientific literature, including  precious books of high value and of importance for book history, including a rare copy of the [[Gutenberg Bible]].

The library holds treasures which are inscribed on [[UNESCO]]'s [[Memory of the World Programme|Memory of the World International Register]]: A collection of about 2,000 books by and about [[Carl Linnaeus|Carl Linné]] (1997);<ref name=mow>{{cite web|title=The Linné Collection|url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/linne-collection |publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme|access-date=2025-04-24}}</ref> the manuscripts and correspondence of [[Hans Christian Andersen]] (1997);<ref name=mowroyal>{{cite web|title=Manuscripts and correspondence of Hans Christian Andersen|url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/manuscripts-and-correspondence-hans-christian-andersen|publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme|access-date=2025-04-24}}</ref> the [[Søren Kierkegaard]] Archives (manuscripts and personal papers) (1997); [[Guamán Poma de Ayala]]'s ''El [[Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno]]'', an autographed manuscript of 1,200 pages including 400 full-page drawings depicting the indigenous point of view on pre-conquest Andean life and Inca rule, the Spanish conquest in 1532, early Spanish colonial rule, and the systematic abuse of the rights of the indigenous population (2007).<ref name=mowandean>{{cite web|title=El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno|url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/el-primer-nueva-coronica-y-buen-gobierno|publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme|access-date=2025-04-24}}</ref> ''Biblia Latina''. Commonly called [[the Hamburg Bible]] or ''the Bible of Bertoldus''  (MS. GKS 4 2°), a richly illuminated Bible in three very large volumes made for the Cathedral of Hamburg in 1255. The 89 illuminated initials in the book are unique both as expressions of medieval art and as sources to the craft and history of the medieval book. (2011);<ref name=mowhamb>{{cite web|title= MS. GKS 4 2°, vol. I-III, Biblia Latina. Commonly called "the Hamburg Bible", or "the Bible of Bertoldus"|url= https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/ms-gks-4-2deg-vol-i-iii-biblia-latina-commonly-called-hamburg-bible-or-bible-bertoldus |accessdate=2025-04-24 |publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme}}</ref>

Other treasures are the [[Copenhagen Psalter]], the [[Dalby Gospel Book]], the Angers fragment (parts of Denmark's first national chronicle), and maps of the Polar Region. The library also holds important collections of Icelandic manuscripts, primarily in ''Den gamle kongelige samling'' (The Old Royal Collection) and ''Den nye kongelige samling'' (The New Royal Collection). Denmark's most outstanding Icelandic collection, the [[Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection]], is however not a holding of The Royal Library but of the [[University of Copenhagen]].

In 2010, the library acquired the 14th-century [[Courtenay Compendium]] at auction.<ref>{{citation |author=Peter Jackson |author-link=Peter Jackson (historian) |title=The Testimony of the Russian 'Archbishop' Peter Concerning the Mongols (1244/5): Precious Intelligence or Timely Disinformation? |year=2016 |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=26 |issue=1–2 |pages=65–77 |doi=10.1017/s135618631500084x|s2cid=159541347 }}.</ref>