Zhytomyr Regional Museum of Local Lore, one of the oldest museum institutions in Ukraine, was founded in the second half of the 19th century on the wave of general interest in studying the nature and history of the region. The great predecessors of modern museologists first gathered in the middle of the XIX century. around the Volyn provincial statistical committee. The museum collection was started in 1865 by a small collection of minerals, which grew rapidly through the efforts of scientists, local historians and collectors and was stored and exhibited in the public library until 1911. An important role in the formation of the museum business in the region was played by the progressive clergy of Volyn. ecclesiastical and archaeological society and the antiquarian antiquities under it (1893). Since 1901, the Volyn Society of Researchers entered the arena and consolidated a whole plethora of talented researchers and local historians who made a significant contribution to the formation of the museum collection.