This article is dedicated to the contribution to the history of book printing and national book culture made by a distinguished inventor, mechanical designer of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Ivan Petrovich Kulibin (1735-1818) whose 275 ^th birthday aniversary we celebrate this year. It addresses Kulibin’s little known activities in the field of development and modernization of technical facilities for the Academic printing house set up on October 4, 1727 that followed the itself Academy’s establishment. Since 1769 while working as a mechanician at the Academy of Sciences Ivan Kulibin assited by ingenious Russian craftsmen did much to develop and modernize printing machines thus making a considerable contribution to the book printing technology development, and hence to the national book culture. Kulibin’s accomplishments in this area are considered on the base of studying his written body of work (first of all his «repots») with providing possibility for using the information about him at creating the bibliographic database on the «History of the National Book Culture».