Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Formal Name:
Narodna biblioteka "Ivan Vazov" (Ivan Vazov National Library)
Name of Librarian: R. Koleva
Address:
ul Vaptsarov 17, 4000 Plovdiv
Phone: (032) 222915
Catalogs, Bibliographies, and Indexes
"The compilation, editing, and publication of the Bulgarian national bibliography has (with the exception of the period of 1949-1963) always been one of the primary tasks of the National Library. The current national bibliography in Bulgaria was created by the law on Legal Deposit of Printed Matters of 1897. After a long and difficult development (at times even ceasing publication: 1909-1918 and 1937-1944), today's Bulgarian current national bibliography has achieved complete coverage of the publishing output.
Using the centrally prepared bibliographic descriptions of books and sheet music and distributes them among libraries and other institutions throughout the country and abroad, thus saving time and labor of librarians and assuring uniformity of catalogs and files.
The "Cyril and Methodius" National Library also continues the realization of an extensive program of retrospective bibliographic coverage of Bulgarian publications. A significant analytic inventory of Bulgarian books published before the liberation of Bulgaria ... was published in two volumes in the period 1957-1959, followed by two retrospective bibliographies of periodicals covering the whole period of 1806-1969....In recent years, the National Library has embarked on an ambitious project of an eight-volume retrospective bibliography of Bulgarian books issued after 1878 and until 1944....Plans have been drawn to extend that bibliography to cover the next period, 1944-1969, thus completing the performance of the retrospective program.
Another field of bibliographic activities of the National Library is the compilation and publishing of recommendations and special bibliographies. Special bibliographies pertain mainly to the social sciences and humanities. A continuing series of biobibliographies of famous Bulgarian writers gained significant popularity.
The National Library's Center of the National Bibliography consists of the following sections: Legal Deposit and Archives of Bulgarian Printed Publications, Bibliography and Statistics of Books; Bibliography and Statistics of Periodicals, Bibliography of Articles (published in journals, newspapers and miscellanies); Retrospective Bibliography; Bibliography of Bulgaria; Special and Recommendation Bibliography."
"A decree of the Council of Minissters of 1973, aimed at the organiation of a national system of scientific and technical information, assigned the "Cyril and Methodius" National Library the task of supplying the highest national govenmental bodies (State Council, Council of Ministers, etc.) with regular current, retrospective, and selective relevant bibliographic information and documentatioon to help the process of decision making. Accordingly, today's Reference Department of the library has an appropriate structure. It consists of separate and cultural bibliographic information and documen taaation, and a general reference service section."
"The services to readers also reflect the active role of the National Library in support of the scientific, cultural, economic, and social development of the country. First priority has been give to satisfying the needs of qualified readers (scientists and specialists-practitioners). In order to secure as many seats as possible for such readers some potential users' groups have not been admitted (children an d young people below the age of 18; university undergraduates in their first and second years of studies) while other categories have not been encouraged to visit the library; that is, though they have been admitted, they have been subjected to various restrictions (e.g. pensioners, nonspecialists, people without higher education, university undergraduates, etc., have been admitted only to the general reading room, not to the specialized reading rooms; university students have not been served with textbooks but with research literature only)....
"In all 11 reading rooms there are about 400 seats altogether.
They are insufficient, and plans for an extension of the existing
library building were drawn long ago but for various reasons they have
not been realized till now.
"Most of the specialized reading rooms have large, open-access
collections of scientific periodicals, reference works, bibiographies,
etc. These open-access colletions are intended to satisfy up to 70%
of all readers' requirements."
Volumes
6.6 million
Titles
1.5 million
Current serial titles
3662
Volumes added annually 16, 461
Number of librarians
272
Library staff
385
Other holdings include manuscripts, rare publications,
maps, . prints, portraits, scores, records, patents, and archival
documents.