Studying the History of Personal Library: A Contribution to the Problem Statement

Russian personal libraries have become a subject of comprehensive study for the fi rst time by O.N. Ilyina. She has outlined a range of research problems associated with the terminology and historiography of these book collections. Ilyina examined the ownership characteristics of personal libraries, their fates, sources and methods of research, and the formation and development of historiography trends on this topic. Each of these identifi ed directions holds potential for development not only in the fi eld of library science but also for historical study. Historians, in particular, fi nd interest in the libraries of educational institutions, book collections of scholars with marginalia or notes from their colleagues, and descriptions of personal libraries left by third-party readers. Many modern educational institutions’ libraries, whose histories began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, contain copies from other, sometimes very famous, collections. For instance, books from the collection of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum were transferred to the library of the Pedagogical Museum of military educational institutions. Th e history of a personal library in the pre-revolutionary period could serve various purposes. It might be an additional argument for increasing social status, as with the book of academician N.P. Likhachev about the family book collection. It can illustrate the worldview of governmental circles and the highest aristocracy, such as the book collection and reading interests of Princess E.G. Saxe-Altenburg. It can reveal the formation of a future statesman’s personality, as seen in the memoirs of D.N. Tolstoy regarding the role of his library, or show the inner “laboratory” of a scholar through the analysis of marginalia left in books or inscriptions on presentation copies. Th e study of the phenomenon of the library of a nobleman-bureaucrat, such as those of S.S. Uvarov and D.A. Tolstoy, deserves separate consideration. Additionally, an important topic is the study of digital libraries, both public and personal. Approaches to the periodization and classifi cation of the history of personal libraries and their terminology need clarifi cation, specifi cally, whether a personal library is considered a book collection. Th ese topics can serve as subjects for joint discussions among historians and librarians