Democracy and libraries: modernizing and rebuilding Bulgarian libraries with US support, 1990–2014

Krastev, Dincho; Kazanski, Nikola

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89842 Copy

Description

Title

Democracy and libraries: modernizing and rebuilding Bulgarian libraries with US support, 1990–2014

Author(s)

• Krastev, Dincho
• Kazanski, Nikola

Issue Date

2015

Keyword(s)

• Post-Communism Development
• History of Libraries
• Russia--Libraries
• Central and Eastern Europe--Libraries

Abstract

Traditionally libraries, including and perhaps especially Bulgarian ones, are very conservative institutions. Libraries indeed have many reasons to be conservative, but this does not mean that they have been inactive. They have to find the proper modus operandi in order to act appropriately, responsibly, and for the greater good of society. Through funds, grants, and projects, Bulgarian libraries have began recovering. This is not to say, however, that they do not have more work ahead of them. The National Academic Library and Information System (NALIS) and the American Bulgarian Library Exchange (ABLE) projects helped pull libraries in Bulgaria out of the ashes and brought them into the twenty-first century. The aim of this paper is to briefly trace the development of Bulgarian libraries over the course of the last twenty-five years. Throughout this period, there were two decisive factors influencing library development: the rapid expansion of information technologies, and, at the same time, the acute social and economic crisis besetting the country that impeded its modernization of library science.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ISSN

0024-2594

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89842

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2015.0026

Copyright and License Information

Copyright (2015) Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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