Largest collection of zoo/aquarium guidebooks

The largest collection of guidebooks from zoos, aquariums and similar wildlife establishments featuring live animals is 6,770 as of 15 October 2020, owned by Leszek Solski (Poland). Leszek started his collection in 1966, at the age of just 13.

Dr Leszek Solski is a zoo historian and the senior scientific specialist at Zoo Wrocław in Poland, the country's oldest zoological facility opened on 10 July 1865.

The guidebooks come from wildlife attractions all around the world on every inhabited continent. The very first guidebook in his collection, received in June 1966, was an example from Calgary Zoo in Canada. His oldest guidebook, published in May 1839, is from Surrey Zoological Gardens, which was located in Newington, Surrey, UK, from 1831 to 1856. Leszek believes one of the rarest items in his collection is a guidebook (c. 1970) from Kabul Zoo in Afghanistan.

In the early years of collecting, when Europe was still divided by the "Iron Curtain", Leszek acquired many of his guidebooks by writing to zoos and aquariums all around the world and requesting them. Via this method, he found he generally achieved a success rate of 75-80%.

In addition to the 6,670 guidebooks, Leszek has also gathered much other zoo-related paraphernalia over the years including leaflets, pamphlets, zoo maps etc numbering, he estimates, in the region of 30,000 items!