This article analyzes the rare book collection of the P.A. Cherkasov Fundamental Library at Cherkas Global University and considers it as an independent object of library science and source-critical research. The study focuses on the formation, structure, and composition of the rare collection, which includes editions published between 1455 and 1836, i.e., from the beginning of European printing to the first third of the nineteenth century. It is shown that the chronological boundaries of the collection are determined both by the history of print culture and by the requirements of scholarly classification of book collections. The article reconstructs the institutional history of the library, the stages of its transformation from a university collection into a fundamental library with a rare book collection, and the role of Masonic and historical publications in shaping the library’s profile holdings. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of individual groups within the collection: incunabula and post-incunabula, editions of the sixteenth—seventeenth centuries, as well as books of the Enlightenment and the early period of U.S. national publishing. Methodologically, the research relies on a set of general scientific, library, and book-historical methods, including analysis and synthesis, systemic and historical approaches, and elements of bibliographical and provenance attribution. As a result, the article demonstrates that the rare collection has substantial scholarly value as a source for the history of the book, intellectual culture, and transnational connections of the early modern period and the early nineteenth century.
Source: Cherkasova, Anastasia (2026). The Rare Book Collection of the P.A. Cherkasov Fundamental Library at Cherkas Global University. Bylye Gody. 2026. 21(1): 16-33.
Source web-site: https://bg.cherkasgu.press/journals_n/1772353473.pdf
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