Cartographer, geographer, historian, writer, polyhistor, publisher, and collector Johann Weichard Valvasor (1641–1693) published a monumental cultural-historical topographical encyclopaedia of Carniola in Nuremberg in 1689 with the title Die Ehre Dess Hertzogthums Crain. With the help of his colleagues, he collected numerous historical, ethnographic, naturalistic and other information, which are still an invaluable source for the history of present-day Slovenian territory, while the huge costs of this long-standing project pushed him to the brink of survival. In his copperplate-printing workshop at the Bogenšperk castle and in collaboration with various illustrators and printers, including Johann Baptist Mayr from Ljubljana, he also published several topographies, collections of vedutas and maps of Carniola, Carinthia, Karst and Istria, as well as some other books, such as a versified moral-didactic work Theatrum mortis humanae tripartitum. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of London in 1687 because of his resounding study on the functioning of the intermittent Cerknica Lake.

The collection includes individual copies of Valvasor's works from the National and University Library’s collections, and the Miran Jarc Library in Novo mesto, as well as articles, biographical and other studies dealing with Vavasor’s life and work.