Digital collection of the scientific library
of the State Museum of Natural History
of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

The Scientific Library of the State Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is a branch library of natural sciences, which is part of the library network of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Its collection includes over 72 thousand documents.

The library was founded at the beginning of the 19th century and is considered one of the oldest libraries in Ukraine.

The basis of the library's collection was a unique collection, which was started by Józef Kalasanty Didushytsky (1776-1847). Initially, it was a private collection of books on Polish and world literature, old prints, rare manuscripts, parchment and iconographic materials, which J. Didushytsky began to collect in 1812. It was kept in the Didushytsky estate in the village of Potorytsa in the Sokal region (Lviv region) and later received the name "Potorytska Library". Thanks to the frequent guests of the estate: famous university professors, writers, artists, the acquisitions of Y. Didushytskyi became known in bibliophile circles, and the owner himself gained a reputation as an authoritative collector. Maintaining ties with bookstores in Lviv, Krakow and Vienna, exchanging books with famous bibliophiles and thanks to his financial capabilities, Y. Didushytskyi collected a library of over 10 thousand volumes.

In 1857, his son Volodymyr Didushytskyi (1825-1899) moved the library from Potorytsia to Lviv and from 1863 began to complete it mainly with natural literature, which as of 1.03.1865 counted 18325 printed volumes, 321 units of manuscript books, 203 documents (of which 93 were parchment), 1473 autographs, 2568 drawings.

Since 1858, the Potorytka Library has become accessible to scientists, journalists, writers and students. The "Rules for Borrowing Books of the Potorytka Library", dated 1866, and the journals for accounting of borrowed books for 1863, 1868-1900, have been preserved.

Since 1870, the library began to function as an integral part of the Natural History Museum founded by V. Didushytsky. Gradually, a fund of scientific literature was formed in it, necessary for the study and use of museum objects. All books were marked with the seal of the Potorytsky Library, and later with the seals and bookplate of the Didushytsky Museum of Natural History in Lviv. The founder of the museum contributed in every way to the development of the library, using his connections in the scientific world, as he was a member of many scientific and public organizations, and when he organized his own printing house at the Ossolineum (today the Vasyl Stefanyk Natural History Museum), the exchange of publications was initiated. This became one of the main sources of replenishment of the library collection. The museum established contacts with many scientific institutions, universities, societies in Poland, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, France, Switzerland, Finland, the USA, etc. Another source of replenishment of the library collection was donations, both of single editions and sets of books with the authors' autographs. Turning to various documentary sources, we find the names of many famous scientists who donated their monographs and articles. Thus, in April 1900, the museum library was gifted with literature in the amount of 407 volumes of the so-called "Warsaw Library" of the famous geologist L. Zeyszner. In 1931, the zoologist F. Zaitsev sent 320 prints and books from Pulawy, and in 1932, the family of the zoologist J. Lomnytsky, who headed the museum in 1915-1931, donated almost 300 important scientific publications. In 1940, part of the library funds of the natural history profile from the T. G. Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) were transported to the museum library, among which were the first Ukrainian-language publications of Ukrainian scientists: I. Verkhradsky, O. Voloshchak, V. Levytsky, S. Pasternak and others.

The museum library contains books dating back to the 16th century, the historical, cultural and scientific value of which is obvious. The collection includes over

100 foreign old prints (published before 1800), including the first encyclopedia of natural science "Natural History" by the Roman scientist Pliny the Elder, published in 1548 (paleotype) and in 1779 in 37 books, books by the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, who made a significant contribution to the formation of biology as a science.

Such unique books also include lifetime publications of world-famous naturalists - the first encyclopedia of zoological knowledge by the Swiss naturalist, bibliographer K. Gesner's "History of Animals" in 5 volumes (1598-1613); books by the Polish naturalist of Scottish origin J. Johnston, including "Natural History" (1650-1653); book by the French writer, popularizer of science B. Fontenelle "Conversations on the Greatness of the World" (1765); books by the German botanist J. H. Schreber, in particular, "Description of Herbs with Their Drawings" (1769); encyclopedia "History of Nature" (1785) by the French naturalist D.-L. Buffon, who 100 years earlier than C. Darwin investigated the problem of the origin of species; many editions of scientific works by the Swedish naturalist C. Linnaeus, published before 1778; the first "Natural History of Invertebrates" (1792) by the French scientist J. H. Brugiera; books by J.-B. Lamarck, N. Pody, G. V. Dobel and many others published before 1800.

The library's periodicals have always been an important part of the collection. They widely present materials from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1903-1938 catalog records 499 titles of scientific and natural science journals and newspapers (all in foreign languages) that the museum subscribed to or received through exchange. Among those included in the list are many complete sets of a number of fundamental journals from the time of their founding. Among the long-standing sets that are still used by scientists today are: "Sylwan" (since 1820), "Zeitschrift für Entomologie" (since 1847), "Journal für Ornithologie" (since 1853), "Verhandlungen der Keiserlish - Königlichen Zoologisch - Botanische Gesellschaft in Wien" (since 1859), "Sprawozdanie Komisyi Fiziograficznej" (since 1867), "Oesterreichische Botanische Zeitschrift" (since 1872), "Łowiec" (1878), "Pamiętnik fizyograficzny" (since 1881), "Rozprawy i Wiadomości z muzeum im. Dzieduszyckych" (since 1914), "Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne" (since 1921), "Bulletin of Entomological Research" [London] (since 1922) and many others.

The museum library has 269 folders, each of which contains from 10 to 80 prints (copies of articles) of the 18th-20th centuries. On 125 folders made during the life of V. Didushytsky, his initials and the names of the materials stored in them are embossed in gold. All materials, many of which contain the authors' autographs, relate to Galicia and the surrounding territories. The materials stored in the folders (90% written in Latin script) highlight the diversity of approaches and views on a particular scientific problem.

The museum library has a large fund of cartographic materials (maps and atlases), which are an obligatory attribute of everyday work with museum collections. The chronological boundaries of these materials begin in 1772. Most of them cover the territory of Galicia and highlight the political and administrative structure of the region at different historical times, for example, maps of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1855 and 1872), Galicia and Bukovina (1870), etc.

Cartographic fundamental works of the main cartographic schools and significant publishers of the 19th century, namely F. Handtke, K. Fleming, G. Freitag, etc., are quite fully represented in the library's holdings.

Among the cartographic materials of the late 19th century, large-scale maps produced by the Austrian Imperial Military Cartographic Institute on behalf of the Austrian General Staff deserve special attention. These are maps with scales from 1:75,000 ("special") to 1:200,000. Among them are "special" maps of the Carpathians and western territories of Ukraine. The "Geological Atlas of Galicia" is still valuable, consisting of 74 geological maps (64×52 cm) with texts for the atlas (1887-1911), most of which were written by museum employees (M. Lomnytsky, J. Siemiradsky, V. Shainokha, etc.).

The museum library also stores city plans - Lviv, Vienna, Prague, Krakow, St. Petersburg, New York, etc. The most valuable of them is the "Lviv City Plan", published by the City Council in 1868.

The collection of handwritten materials (author's originals) that remained in the museum library covers the period from 1819 to 1939. Among these materials, the archive of the Didushytsky family is of historical value. Here are stored: the Statute of the Didushytskyi Ordination, business documents on the family's property since 1845, business correspondence of the family, personal notebooks and scientific works of the museum's founder, alphabetical lists of books made by V. Didushytskyi.

Of interest to scientists are the author's handwritten works, including scientific articles, monographs, and abstracts by geologist L. Zeishner, zoologist E. Schauer, naturalists M. and J. Lomnytskyi, J. Tayser, and forester F. Vyshomyrsky and others.

Of considerable value are the "Sprawozdania Muzeum" of various years until 1937, reports and correspondence of the Nature Conservation Society from 1930-1940, the Statute, Program and reports of the Entomological Society of Galicia, books of reviews of museum visitors since 1871.

The library fund contains a significant number of diplomas, certificates, and other distinctions that were awarded to V. Didushytsky (since 1856) and the museum for public and scientific activities, for significant achievements and successes in world and regional exhibitions. Many of them are signed by the most famous personalities of those times.

The current fund of the Scientific Library of the museum consists of literature in the natural sciences. By purpose, it is divided into main and exchange.

The main fund consists of:
• Cyrillic books (civil printing books),
• foreign literature before 1939,
• modern foreign books,
• reference and bibliographic literature,
• abstracts and theses,
• modern periodicals since 1940,
• cartographic materials (geographical, topographic, historical, etc.),
• manuscripts,
• diplomas and awards.

As of January 1, 2025, it has 72,196 documents (books, periodicals, abstractsdissertations, prints, brochures, booklets).

The library's exchange fund, started by the museum's founder, existed until 1939. In 1960, it was re-established. Based on the "Regulations on the Exchange Fund of the PDM of the NAS of Ukraine", compiled and approved in 1996, it is supplemented with scientific publications of the museum. The library maintains book exchange relations with specialized institutions.

Statistics of scanned books

As part of the new project, 125 books were scanned (101 old hands and 24 books published in more recent times) and 11 issues of periodical publication.

The number of authors of the scanned books is 109 (books by old hands: 50, other books: 12 and periodicals: 47).

The number of scanned pages is limited to 36233 (books by old hands: 31172, other books: 2543 and periodicals: 2318). All files were, after scanning, submitted to further processing in a graphic editor and converted into pdf format for posting on the website and further free downloading and in review mode without first downloading.

Statistical data on scanning of old prints

Years	Number of authors	Number of pages	Years	Number of authors	Number of pages
1548	1	979	1788	1	293
1714	1	224	1789	1	421
1715	1	225	1791	2	474
1718	1	232	1794	1	742
1721	1	456	1795	1	424
1727	1	70	1797	3	1654
1733	1	44	1798	2	409
1734	1	68	1801	1	62
1746	1	640	1803	1	60
1760	1	824	1804	2	367
1761	1	68	1806	1	315
1763	1	50	1807	1	346
1766	1	247	1809	1	822
1767	1	392	1811	2	465
1768	1	224	1812	1	501
1770	2	218	1816	2	984
1772	2	304	1817	2	605
1773	1	42	1818	1	204
1774	2	1118	1819	1	69
1775	2	671	1821	5	1082
1777	3	1796	1822	4	1412
1778	1	982	1823	3	224
1779	2	1936	1824	2	297
1780	1	500	1825	4	791
1781	3	2419	1826	1	102
1782	2	906	1827	1	152
1783	4	2028	1828	2	112
1785	1	336	1829	1	584
1786	1	188	1830	3	806
			1831	2	456
All pages:					33422

Statistics on scanning other books

Years	Number of authors	Number of pages
Without date	1	142
1834	1	37
1836	1	70
1842	2	429
1844	1	268
1850	2	233
1853	1	320
1854	2	192
1855	2	230
1856	1	100
1857	3	1473
1858	1	104
1859	3	742
1860	1	139
1864	1	132
1865	1	63
1869	1	60
1870	1	53
1874	1	98
1876	1	69
1877	3	1117
1880	1	306
1881	3	319
1882	2	226
1883	1	279
1884	2	363
1885	2	292
1886	3	204
1887	1	284
1888	3	325
1890	1	99
1892	5	624
1893	2	253
1894	3	1518
1895	1	54
1898	3	392
1906	1	234
All pages:		11843

Statistical data on scanned periodicals

Years	Number of authors	Number of pages
1915	10	322
1916	7	216
1917	8	573
1918	9	297
1919	16	436
1921	9	215
1923	12	147
1924	9	112
All pages:		2318