Personal book collections in the library fund of the Military Medical Academy

The purpose of the article is to reveal the role and importance of personal book collections for the formation of the library fund of the Military Medical Academy, as a unique information resource for educational, scientific and practical activities. The historical chain of library patronage is traced in the form of the donation to the library of entire book collections or their fragments by private individuals - representatives of various estates and social groups: statesmen, princes, merchants, publishers, bibliophiles. Information is provided on the largest donations of books and book collections by professors of the Academy and their heirs, on the further fate of these gifts. Among the professors-donors, the names of the leaders of the library are named: V.A. Manassein, A.R. Voynich-Syanozhentsky, D.P. Radoslavova. The origins of the formation of a long tradition of arranging separate cabinets for storing personal libraries of prominent representatives of medical science are considered. In different historical periods, there were personal cabinets of A.G. Bakherakht, Ya.V. Willie, D.I. Kashlakova, S.P. Botkin. The tradition continues to this day: in September 2022, the VMedA library solemnly accepted part of the personal book collection of Academician V.O. Samoilov, placed in a special cabinet, stylized as antique library furniture, which was taken care of by the students and followers of the scientist. Nowadays, the criteria and approaches to evaluating personal libraries are changing: the preservation of their integrity is of particular importance. There comes an understanding that the personal libraries of scientists are of particular interest for historical research: to study the biography, creative path, sources of intellectual development, the network of scientific communications of their owners, to reconstruct their personality and their fate. But only if the libraries are available for study in their entirety, without exceptions. Most of the collections turned out to be scattered in the fund without any hope of re-creation and reunification, at least virtual - in the form of bibliographic lists. Based on the foregoing, it was concluded that there are a number of problems in maintaining the collection unity of personal book collections, modern methods for solving these problems, including those based on the use of special library technologies, are proposed.