Printed catalogue of Ukrainian Roman font old-printed books of the 16–18th centuries: exploration and popularization of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine funds

Abstract

The article announces a new printed catalogue of Ukrainian Roman font old-printed editions, which is being prepared in the Old and Rare Books Department of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. The catalogue is based on editions from the Old and Rare Books Department. Books from other departments of the library would be catalogued on further stage of the research. The importance of such catalogue is doubtless, as the existing catalogue of Ukrainian old-printed editions of Ya. Zapasko and Ya. Isaievych is incomplete, has some lacunas and imprecisions. Besides that, the new catalogue would contain data on old-printed editions, published not only within modern state borders of Ukraine, but also within ethnical Ukrainian territories, which are now parts of Belarus and Poland. The catalogue is arranged by a geographic chronological principle and it will be divided in two parts. The first part will include editions of printing-houses from the bounds of modern state borders of Ukraine. The second part will contain editions of printing-houses from ethnic Ukrainian territories. Chronologically the catalogue would cover editions from 1563 to 1800 inclusively. For user convenience, several indexes will be added to the catalogue. In the process of work on the catalogue, date-lines of significant numbers of editions were attributed, variants of some editions, not mentioned in bibliography, were found. Bibliographical descriptions of editions in the catalogue will contain information on pagination or foliation, signatures, fingerprints, notes on the content of editions, variants, elements of art decoration. Where necessary, the defectiveness of copies will be defined. The article presents several examples of bibliographical description of editions and copies, made for the catalogue.