The creation of a highly detailed on-line catalogue of Walter Scott’s Library at Abbotsford has made it possible for the first time, not only to see exactly what items Scott collected, but also in many cases to determine when and how he acquired them. If, as Alberto Manguel has claimed, all libraries are autobiographical, what does this enhanced information about Abbotsford Library tells us about Scott? Five distinct topics have been selected for examination: Americana, Ireland, Science, Politics and Bibliography. They have been chosen because, although they are for the most part not subjects frequently connected with Scott, they are nonetheless areas on which he collected a substantial amount of books or manuscripts, and for which substantive information about his involvement or interest can be deduced from external sources such as his Journal or correspondence. In addition to the investigation of these specific subject areas, the collection as a whole is explored for evidence for Scott’s personal relationships, both with other writers and with members of his family, focussing especially on his collections of Burns and Byron, the commonplace book he kept as a young man, and his own marginalia. Evidence concerning Scott’s final book purchases is surveyed against the conflicting accounts of his mental and physical health in 1831/2 as given by J. G. Lockhart, William Gell, and other contemporary observers, and an account of the afterlife of the Library traces its history from Scott’s death to the present day to examine how closely the present arrangement of the books resembles that intended by Scott, and whether changes which took place after his death could mislead us into drawing incorrect conclusions. Finally a description of the twenty-first century cataloguing process with some statistical analysis of the contents of the Library examines the importance of the holdings to ask if this is a significant collection, even without the provenance of one of the most popular and prolific writers of the Romantic Era, and whether Scott’s influence on nineteenth-century book culture is one of his most important contributions to modern scholarship.

Master's paper (M.S. in L.S.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-62) and abstract.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Albany, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 244-260).

in English: The topic of this Diploma Thesis is the Sychrov Castle Library, which belonged to the Rohan noble clan. The aim of this Thesis was to evaluate the proveniencial, thematic, linguistic and quantitative representation of individual titles. The introduction presents the aim of the work and its structure. The subsequent chapters focus briefly on the history of the Sychrov Castle and the history of the Rohans, mainly the Rohan-Guémené line, since the members of the clan who settled at the Sychrov Castle came from that line. Details are given about the representatives of the nobility clan who had substantial influence on the appearance and composition of the castle library. The fourth chapter is devoted to the Sychrov Castle Library itself and familiarises readers with catalogues, book quantities, document issue dates, information about the oldest and newest titles, the language composition of the library's collection and preserved exlibris, supralibros and ownership inscriptions. The most extensive chapter, the fifth one, focuses on the content characteristics of the Sychrov Castle Library's collection. The sixth chapter compares the library's collection with the library collections of two different nobility clans, the Beaufort-Spontin and the Mensdorff-Pouilly clans. The seventh chapter...

The Master's thesis follows the unusual fate of the castle library in Mikulov. This library belonging to the family of Dietrichstein-Mensdorff-Pouilly was sold off through auctions in the times of the so-called Czechoslovak First Republic (1933, 1934). A part of its stock became a property of today's Moravian provincial library in Brno and some of the old manuscripts were sold to other institutions in Czechoslovakia. The thesis focuses on the position of the aristocratic family of the Dietrichsteins which was connected with the legal institution of fideicommissum, the cancellation of which led to the selling off of the Mikulov castle library. Moreover, the thesis deals with a comparison of the above mentioned situation and the other castle library sales between the two world wars. Over 200 000 items were sold from the Mikulov library, most of them being old and valuable books. Key words: fideicommissum, Mikulov, Nicolsburg, Dietrichstein family, aristocratic libraries, history of libraries

The subject of my thesis is the bibliographic processing of the collection of old Czech prints published until 1800 preserved in the Tschammer Library in Cieszyn. The aim is a compilation of bibliographical inventory of preserved editions to give an answer to three research questions. First question is: can a revision of former research results bring something new from the perspective of the national retrospective bibliography? Than whether and how the results of the analysis of the Czech historical collection of specifically local church library can extend the existing knowledge in the research of the history of book culture in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia? Finally, what does the analysis of the provenance of preserved copies held in the Tschammer Library bring to the history of readers, reading and book culture in the Czech lands? The introductory chapter is devoted to the development of evangelical community of Cieszyn Silesia from the 16th to the beginning of the 19th century. The second chapter presents the history of the library and the basic characteristics of its historical collections. The third chapter focuses on the results of my bibliographic research. The conclusion brings a summary of the work and an evaluation of the achieved results, followed by a bibliographic inventory of...

The present work focuses on the library in the state castle Hrádek u Nechanic, which was owned by the noble family of Harrach since its foundation until 1945. The introductory chapters describe the history of the Harrach family, with particular emphasis on the owners of the library, the history of the building and the book collection itself. Subsequently, the fund is characterized according to its chronological and language structure. The main body of the thesis deals with a thematic analysis and a provenance survey of Hrádek's library. This includes a description of the different types of bookplates and signatures of the owners of individual books, with a special focus on Jan Nepomuk of Harrach, who signed the largest number of books in Hrádek. Printed and handwritten dedications present in the fund are characterized as well. In conclusion all further notes in Hrádek's volumes of significance to the history of the individual books are described. In this work it is shown that the majority of the fund does not consist of books written in Czech, as it was claimed in some of older works dealing with this library, it is predominated by books written in German. Thematically, mainly fiction can be found in the library. There also are a number of periodicals and, in addition to printed books, several...

The purpose of this thesis is to compile and analyze librarian Greta Renborg’s book propaganda in the Dalarna region of Sweden 1956–1958. The overall theoretical perspective is contextual, focusing on the concepts structure and actor. The actor perspective is further developed by an analysis of Renborg’s book propaganda through library researcher Jofrid Karner Smidt’s mediation roles: Critic and literature expert, Social anthropologist, Pedagogue, Marketer and Ordinary person. Source material includes archive documents, journal articles, newspaper articles and literature. Renborg’s own writing holds a special position in the material. The thesis’ results show that the conditions for carrying out book propaganda in Dalarna were good. Sweden was going through a rapid change in the 1950’s and the state library institution was expanding and willing to experiment. The civic society in Dalarna was strong. The region’s central librarian Tora Olsoni was a driving force behind the hiring of a book consultant. Greta Renborg had contacts high up in the library institution and was a well-known name among Swedish librarians. Source material indicate that she could plan and conduct the Dalarna project basically by her own, only supervised by her employer Dalarnas biblioteksförbund. Greta Renborg built up a large network of contacts and focused her propaganda on non-reading groups ac- cording to a state investigation in 1952, especially farmers, foresters and housewives. The source material shows that her book propaganda has features of all Jofrid Karner Smidt’s mediation roles. The medial reception was overwhelmingly positive and often focused on Renborg’s enthusiastic approach. Any statistical effects of the Dalarna Project have not been proven. This thesis shows that the Dalarna Project to a large extent depended on Greta Renborg as a person. This is the thesis’ most important result. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

The aim of the thesis is to compare the historical development and current state of the Library of Geology at Faculty of Natural Sciences, Charles University in Prague and the CADIST Géosciences et Environnement library in Paris. In the Introduction, the development of both libraries, including historical contexts, is documented. In the second part of the thesis, the decomposition method of library systems is used to analyse the current state of both libraries. Data for the analysis was collected by the author, partly during her employment in the Library of Geology at the Charles University in Prague, and partly during the internship at the CADIST Géosciences et Environnement Library in Paris. In the third part, the comparison based on the comparative librarianship method, of both geological libraries is created. Consequently, the possibilities of innovation of the Library of Geology at the Charles University in Prague inspired by the CADIST Géosciences et Environnement Library in Paris, and the possibilities of future cooperation among branch-related libraries are proposed. Finally, the benefits of the work are assessed.

(anglicky) The aim of the work is describe and evaluate history and present of Municipal Library of Kutná Hora and outline possible prospects of its development. The author of this diploma thesis describes departments of Library, their local and national services and activities. The work emphasizes signification of Library not only in regional viewpoint.