Urządzenie i organizacja Biblioteki Zakładu Naukowo-Wychowawczego oo. Jezuitów w Bąkowicach koło Chyrowa (1886-1939)

Abstract

Towards the end of 1930’s, the Library at the Jesuit Institution for Scholarship and Education in Bąkowice consisted of over 50 thousand volumes. The collection included medieval manuscripts, incunabula, old music prints, collections of the 18th-century maps, rare scholarly and scientific works, academic and school manuals from Jesuit Colleges (the oldest ones from Połocko), from missions (e.g. Minsk) and from Jesuit houses before the abolition of the order. Jesuits tried to regain the volumes, dispersed and stolen after the abolition, after the order had been reestablished. They bought back many books and received others as free contributions. Thanks to Jesuit activity, part of the collection was first gathered in their College in Tarnopol, set up in 1820, and later on taken to Bąkowice. After the College in Tarnopol had been closed in 1886, the Jesuits opened the Institution for Scholarship and Education in Bąkowice near Chyrów. Its nucleus was the collection from Tarnopol. Jesuit scholars attached special importance to developing the library, the quality of new books, their didactic functionality, protection and storage, library rooms, structure, organisation and the system of description. As far as number, value and educational functionality were concerned, the collection from Chyrów exceeded libraries of all secondary schools in Galicia and - later on - in the independent Poland. In 1939 the Institution was liquidated by the Soviet authorities, and during the war the collection of books was destroyed.