Tarot cards at RUC: K. Frank Jensen Collection: Scope

The purpose of the collection is to make documents and objects available for research into the historical, cultural, sociological, philosophical and artistic aspects of esoteric and hermetic subjects.

The collection can be used and visited for research use by appointment.
The use of materials in K. Frank Jensen Collection must be in accordance with the applicable danish copyright law (In danish) and copying agreement between Copydan Tekst & Node and the universities.
This implies:
 

•  Photography, scanning and other copying of the materials are for personal use only and may not be redistributed or otherwise made available unless permission is given by the copyright holder or the copyright to the work has expired. The copyright of a work expires 70 years after the author's death. After 70 years, the rules of "Droit moral" apply. This means that the author is still entitled to be credited when the work is used and that the work must not be used in an offensive manner. For the tarot cards, in most cases the designer will be credited.
•  Roskilde University Library can offer to send copies of the contents of the collection (fees can occur), if copyright can be respected.
•  Roskilde University Library is always entitled to refuse copying and scanning if it is considered that this will damage the physical state of the material.

If you wish to request copies of the collection's documents, please contact Roskilde University Library at Ask the Library. It is also possible to book and sit at the library with the material. Contact the Library for an appointment.

The collection contains tarot cards and literature, related to the historical and cultural aspects of the tarot. K. Frank Jensen collected cards, books and other Tarot-related items for his private collection since the 1970s until the beginning of 2000. The collection is considered one of the finest and most representative in the world.

Cards and other fortune-telling items
The archive and the card collection consist of about 1,500 decks of tarot decks, 600 sets of fortune telling cards, as well as a large number of fortune-telling items, such as dices, rune stones, and various games and game items that have been used for fortune-telling purposes.

Books and correpondences
In addition to the 3,000 books in the collection (primarily in English, German, French and Danish), it also contains an extensive correspondence archive with relation to tarot and esoteric themes (primarily in English and Danish).

K. Frank Jensen divided the collection's objects into categories and subcategories. Categories are tarot or cartomancy, and the different subcategories may be art, esoteric or mythological. The categories appear in The Library System.