Summary
The entry of the Serbs into the modern European civilization will affect Serbian monasterial libraries crucially. Among other things, the special administrative care about these libraries has begun since then. The first inventories of the property belonging to the monasteries on the territory of the Metropolitanate of Belgrade and Karlovci appeared during the metropolitans Mojsije Petrović and Vikentije Jovanović, in the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century. Within these lists, there were also separate inventories of books, as the first catalogues of the monasterial libraries. Compiling the lists of books was a compulsory part of episcopal supervisory visits to the eparchies, and in the seventies of the eighteenth century, the state government of the Austrian Empire regulates handling of monasterial property, which included books as one of its most important parts, by law. Since then, making inventories of book collections has become an annual obligation of monasteries, and thus it becomes possible to monitor their development continuously, as an important element of the history of Serbian librarianship.

Keywords:
Metropolitanate of Karlovci, Austrian Empire, monasteries, libraries, inventories, rules, cataloguing, history of Serbian libraries, proto-librarianship

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