The first exposition of the “Book Museum” department of the Lviv Art Gallery was opened in 1977 under the name “Ivan Fedorov Museum” in the premises of the church of the monastery of St. Onuphria, on the street. B. Khmelnitskogo, 36. The staff of the department as part of M. Vidashenko, B. Zavadky and I. Mytska actively worked on a new exposition, consulting with well-known and authoritative book experts F. Maksymenka, Y. Isaevicha, Y. Zapaska, V. Swiss. The construction of the exposition was directed by the director of the Gallery B. Voznitsky. It consisted of three parts according to the Trinitarian layout of the interior of the church. The first part presented the history of the Cyrillic printed book in our fields from manuscript codes to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The second part introduced the development of printing in Lviv from the 19th century and the research of book printing in the Ukrainian fields up to the demonstration of the newest (in 1977) methods of reproduction of texts and images. The third part, the central nave, was used as a space for exhibition projects from museum funds, Lviv libraries, works by Lviv artists and publishers.

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In 1989, the church and monastery of St. Onufriy was returned to the community, and the museum's funds for a long time lay in the storerooms of the Gallery. In 1997, it was possible to obtain permission for the temporary placement of the exposition of the Book Museum in the building of the Directorate of Underground Tram Construction in Lviv near the Potocki Palace. The second exposition of the department called “Museum of the Art of the Ancient Ukrainian Book”, which presented samples of handwritten and printed books in Ukraine, was placed in showcases from the previous exposition on the second floor of the building.

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As of today, the collection of the Museum of Old Ukrainian Book — department of Lviv National Gallery of Arts named after B.G. Voznitsky counts approx. 16 thousand units: manuscripts, old prints, unique editions of the XIX — early XX centuries in Ukrainian, Polish, German, French, Russian and other languages; editions of the “Soviet” period in Ukrainian, Russian, Hungarian and other languages; unique printing machines, typefaces and artistic clichés; best samples of book graphics and designs of illustrations of various books that artists submitted to publishers, etc.

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The modern view of the book, its history, book-keeping in Ukraine require new exhibition spaces and other approaches to exposition. Currently, part of the collection of the Museum of Old Ukrainian Book, namely the old prints, are presented at the expositions of the Museum-Reserve of Olesko and Zolochiv Castles. Olesko exhibits the best samples of the printing house of the Lviv Holy Assumption Stavropygian fraternity, most of which are printed on Buska paper. Zolochiv presents unique samples of early prints of Ukrainian printing houses.

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