Old prints and scientific literature of the State Natural History Museum are now online

We invite you to browse old prints and scientific literature on natural sciences of the State Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. From now on you can do it online.
The library of the State Natural History Museum is one of the oldest natural history libraries in Ukraine. About 120 old prints (before 1800) are stored here, the oldest of which dates back to 1548.
Books that were previously only available to the scientific community are now open to anyone. We are sincerely glad, because this became possible, in particular, thanks to the targeted support that our organization provided to the State Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine within the framework of the project Whitley Fund for Nature.

Thanks to the purchased equipment, the library digitizes both individual books, which will be open for public access online, and library catalogs.

“Old prints have more historical value. But the newer ones (published before 1939), which relate to the research of the region of Galicia and adjacent territories, have scientific value. Scientists in modern research turn to the sources, therefore, these books are of great importance for science,” says the chief librarian of the museum, Iryna Susulovska.

Digitization will facilitate access to books for scholars, make them accessible to the general public, and help preserve valuable books.

The impact of the war forces us to look for new opportunities to preserve the national library heritage through their digitization. In the case of destroyed old prints, their content will continue to live for us.

Digitized books can be viewed or downloaded on the website of the Project for Digitization of the Scientific Library of the State Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences at the following link: http://lib.smnh.org. To date, 19 digitized books and part of the library catalog have already been uploaded here.