Ex libris... Ex bibliotheca... Book Collections in the National Museum Library and their Previous Owners

The monograph ‘Ex libris... Ex bibliotheca… Book Collections in the National Museum Library and Their Former Owners’ is an outcome of the ‘PROVENIO Project: The Method of Book Provenance Research’, supported by the Applied Research and Development of National and Cultural Identity Programme (NAKI). The main objectives of the project were to develop a general methodology for book provenance recording and cataloguing with respect to the specifics of Bohemian and Moravian book collections and to create a separate textual-visual authority database of the owners of books and book collections, ‘PROVENIO’. The database contains brief biographical notes on former book owners (individuals, families and institutions), characteristics of their collections and information on the use of typical provenance marks. It builds on extensive provenance research of book collections of the National Museum Library, which forms its source and information basis. Although a comprehensive and detailed analysis of personal libraries was not the primary goal (and it was not even realistic within the period determined by the duration of the project), the researchers have managed to gather enough material and map the historical origin and development of these collections such that it is possible to provide at least the basic characteristics of individual sets placed in the National Museum Library – and not only in it. This publication briefly presents and to some extent also codifies the current state of the PROVENIO online database, which is an open, continuously complemented textual-visual databank and which already now contains more information in many respects (some information on non-book collections and on book as well as archival documents or collection items preserved not only in the National Museum but also outside of it). It is and will be an information and source springboard for further provenance research into National Museum collections. More information for those interested in the book collections recorded in this book and the individuals and institutions connected with them is available at http://www.provenio.net.