engleski

Thinking like a historian: searching in the archives for the evidence of book ownership

This paper starts with a short introduction on the role of archives (and other memory institutions) in preserving our historical heritage emphasizing the fact that they primarily attract attention of historians, including book historians. It furthermore discusses the issue of identifying sources that record book ownership. It takes a look at each, both published and unpublished, demonstrating in what way they can indicate book ownership. The paper focuses on private book owners who, unlike collective book owners (the Church, universities or schools), cannot always be easily identified. At the end there is a short discussion on the reliability of all the sources. The purpose of this paper is not to give a complete list of sources confirming book ownership but rather to show its vast variety suggesting that archives and other memory institutions, as the repositories holding documents of historical value, are rich in the primary sources necessary for book history research.

book history research, archives, book ownership, documents, primary sources

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