Catalogues and inventories of the book collections of Zygmunt Pusłowski

The subject of the article are catalogues and inventories of Count Zygmunt Pusłowski’s book collections, which belong to the Pusłowski family archive of manuscripts, now preserved in the Jagiellonian Library. It attempts to outline the profile of their creator as as well as of members of the Czarków line of Puslowski family, beginning from Wojciech and Józefa née Drucka‑L ubecka. The current condition of the inventories, which are arranged into five units (BJ AP, Przyb. 594/99–598/99), is reviewed. Applying statistical analysis, the overall number of inventories in each unit is compared with the number of descriptions in each inventory and the total number of volumes, while taking account of the description elements, their numbering, and existing notes. Furthermore, the paper brings up a more general issue of using library inventories as historical sources for investigating readership, material culture, and bibliophily. In the conclusions, a number of methodological errors in the studies of inventories that have been made to date are indicated and a proper method for studying the book collection of Zygmunt Pusłowski is suggested