Donations to school libraries from the Lithuanian-Belarusian province in the first half of the 19th century

The article discusses donations to the libraries of schools from the Vilnius School District in the first half of the 19th century. Information about these donations can be found in reports after visits at schools, in inventories of school libraries, recollections, and diaries. Source materials contain descriptions of the state of school libraries, lists of donated items, and information about the benefactors. Among people who donated books to school libraries, we can frequently come across the employees of the school’s administrative apparatus, representatives of local noble families, and former students. The sources register mainly important donations. The preserved documentation allows for reconstructing the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the donated collections. The donated prints did not always correspond to the then curricula and were characterized by low pedagogical value. Apart from books, engravings, and notes, schools also received other gifts – mineralogical collections, musical instruments, equipment of the physics labs – which relates to the model of a typical library from the Enlightenment period