Project 2: Balkan Biography
In 2002 the National Library “Cyril and Methodius” and the Center for Advanced Study in Sofia, Bulgaria, completed their joint project, which basic aim was to prepare a full bibliographic review of all scientific researches, issued in Bulgaria over the past 15 years in the field of cultural, historic, political and literature connections between the Southeast European states, as well as to compile researches, devoted on some of the countries in this region. The result of this project was the creation of a data base, and publishing of bibliographical directory “Bulgarian publications in Balkan studies 1985-2001?.
The bibliographic research and selection of the publications was done by librarians, working at the National Library, while the material itself was arranged in the following topics : Institutions researching the Balkans; Balkan Education; Balkan History; Balkan Economic History; Balkan Culture; Anthropology and Ethnography; Sociological and Statistical data; Political and Ethnic Situation in the Balkans; Theory of Literature; Linguistics.
The data base was presented and highly appreciated from the directors of national libraries in the SEE countries, who took part in the Meeting of directors, carried out in November 2002 in Sofia.
In Jine 2003 a working meeting with representatives of the Bulgaria’s National Library, SoftLib company, National Library of Serbia and National and University Library of Macedonia was organized. During the meeting the participants discussed the opportunity of continuing and enlarging the project through establishment of a common data base on the issues mentioned while each country from the region undertook the commitment to research and provide access to all relative publications in its national collections. The participants agreed on the following issues:
* The focus of the future Balkan bibliography to be on the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as on the comparative studies of the Balkan countries
* The information in the future database to be in the national languages and in English
* To test how the process of exchange of records between system used in the libraries works
* Bulgaria’s National Library to prepare list with criteria for selection the information for the bibliography. The list of criteria to be expanded by the other libraries.
