Antique books museum of ONU

The museum of rare book SL ONU has been opened in February 1979.
The fund of Museum of rare book of the Scientific library shows by itself rare and valuable editions, picked from the general fund of storage. Together with nominal collections of library the fund of museum counts now nearly 100 thousands of editions.

Incunabulums — books of "cradle" period of book-printing (II half of XV cent.) — are presented with works on questions of jurisprudence, history and mathematics, published in Nuremberg, Padui, Venice. Collection of editions of XVI cent., which are preserved in the funds of library, counts nearly 500 books in Latin, French, German, Italian, Czech, Polish, Greek, English, including 87 palaeotypes (editions of first half of XVI cent.). Editions of famous printers of Western Europe are presented in it: Al'div, Dzhunti, Et'sniv, Planten, Froben and other publishing houses, including — from collection of the well-known lawyer and senator R.M.Gube, which has appeared in library in 1868.
Among the masterpieces of native book-printing of XVI cent. there are: glorious "Ostrozhskaya Bible" of Ivan Fedorov, book of prominent theologian of IV cent. A.D. saint Vasiliy Kessariyskiy from Kappadokiya — "O postnichestve".

The library has a rich collection of editions of XVII cent. The native book-printing of XVII cent. is presented by many editions of printing-house of the Kievo-pecherskaya large monastery: "Liturgiarion si est’ sluzhebnik...” Piotr Mogila (1639) is the 3rd edition of "Sluzhebnik" of prominent public and church personality, founder of Kievo-mogidyanskiy staff of colleagues; "Key of insight to legal priests (monks) and secular” (1659) Ionikiy Galyatovskiy; "Resolution about liberties of Zaporozhskie forces" (1659); "Sinopsys or brief collection from different chronographers about origin of Slavo-Russian nation." (1678)Inokentiy Gyzel
Intravital editions of political and historical treatises of Hugo Grotius, Tomas Hobbes and John Milton are presented in the funds of library, labours of grate Czech teacher Yan Amos Kamenskiy, famous Italian anatomist, botanist and physicist Marchello Malpighi, english physiologist Wiliam Harvey.
The standards of activity of Elzevir house (Holland) enter into the composition of collection.

Collection of editions of XVIII cent. includes works of the prominent European philosophers, scientists, writers, travelers of that time.
A considerable place among the rarities of the library belongs to editions of Petrovskaya epoch. The scientific library has a wonderful collection of descriptions of trips, published in XVII - XVIII cent. There are the descriptions of geographical expeditions to all parts of the world, and also trips around Ukraine and Russia.
Collection of editions XIX and XX cent. — is generally the small circulations of bibliophilic editions. The illustrated editions of large format are the decoration of collection; among especially valuable is the work of prominent expert of Byzantium N.P.Kondakov "History and significant sites of Byzantine enamel" (Petersburg, 1892).

The collection of Russian illegal and forbidden books of the XIX cent.( 170 units) is preserved in the library.
Among the rare Ukrainian books an almanac "Mermaid Dnistrovaya" (Budim, 1837) comes into notice; it is the first book written in a folk language on Western-Ukrainian grounds. Intravital and rare editions of classics of Ukrainian literature, such as Kotlyarevskiy, T.Shevtchenko, I.Franko, Lesya Ukrainka are presented in the library.
The local editions, which reflect the political, scientific, cultural and economic life of Odessa since its origin and to this day, are diligently collected in the Scientific library of Odessa National university.

The collection of periodical editions which includes a lot of rarities is the pride of ONU Scientific Library. Some of them are presented in whole sets for a few decades and even centiruies.
The ONU Scientific library has in its structure 1З nominal book collections. The fund of well-known slavist professor V.I.Grygorovytch counts 795 names (889 volumes). Among the most interesting books in the fund of Grygorovytch there is the second edition of Pamva Berinda Lexicon (Kutein, 1653), books of Petrovskaya epoch, rare dictionaries and grammars.

The personal library of count O.G.Stroganov was passed to the Novorossiysk university in 1894 She has 7860 names (nearly 19 thousands of units) of books and magazines of various thematic directions. A lot of books are devoted to military affair, problems of jurisprudence, history, biology, medicine. There are 55 copies of forbidden by tsar's censorship editions in composition of fund.
The most prestigious collection of Odessa national university Scientific library — is the book collection of counts Vorontsov, which counts 1З 690 names (52 800 volumes) in more than twenty languages.
There are a good few of rarities in the fund. An exceptional value is presented by the so-called Bible of Radzivillov, printed in Brzhets (Brest-Litovsk) in 1563; the first translation of Bible is in Polish.
Plenty of encyclopedias, dictionaries, memoir literature, descriptions of trips and expeditions is presented in the fund. Considerable part of Vorontsov library is presented by the books, brochures, newspapers and magazines French revolution epoch, including the rare counter-revolutionary and emigrant editions.

The rich collection of the European periodicals of the XVI 1-ХVIII cent. (450 names) which seizes the period from 1675 to 80th of the XIX cent. Among then there are editions of rarities, which are absent in most considerable storerooms of the world.
The local, foremost Odessa editions, are widely presented in the Vorontsov library.
The nominal fund of historian M.K.Shilder counts 4136 names and represents the collection of books and magazines mainly in Russian, French and German on native and foreign history. The original individual part of Shilder’s fund is presented by famous Shilder’s thecas, which mean the thematic assemblings of the magazines and newspaper clippings, devoted to the prominent historical events of the XIX cent.
The dramaturgic fund of Tereshenko got in the library in 1920.
Library funds were replenished with the personal books collections of Odessa university professors: B.O.Lupanov (1960), A.G.Gotapov-Gotlyba (1961). F.E.Petrunya (1963), S.P.Ilyovaya (1996), G.I.Shwebbes (2004), V.A.Smyntyna (2004), A.K.Smolskaya (2004).