Georg Sverdrup

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This article is about the founder of the Norwegian university library. For the President of Augsburg Seminary, see Georg Sverdrup (President of Augsburg Seminary).

Georg Sverdrup (born Jørgen Sverdrup, April 25, 1770-1850) was a Norwegian philologist, responsible for building the first Norwegian university library.

The University of Oslo was established in 1811, but due to the Napoleonic War it was not until 1815 that Sverdrup could receive the 50,000 volumes, then in Copenhagen, intended for the new university library. It took another year for the government to provide adequate housing for the collection, and not until 1828 was the library finally completed, with a total of 90,000 volumes.

The new university library at Blindern, finished in 1999, is named after Georg Sverdrup. It houses today more than 2,000,000 books.

Apart from this, Sverdrup was also a popular lecturer of Greek.

Sverdrup represented Christiania at the Riksforsamlingen in Eidsvoll in 1814 and a member of the constitutional commission. Sverdrup was elected to the Stortinget for the periods 1818–20 and 1824–26.