DIGITAL CENTER

The Digital Center was created in 2008 as a result of a project for the preservation of the cultural and historical heritage and the popularization among a wide range of users of particularly valuable documents owned by the library. The equipment of the center includes modern scanners of the leading French company i2s – formats A2 and A0.

The Center works to solve a number of theoretical and practical issues such as:
• development of methodology and best practices for scanning cultural heritage;
• developing a methodology for digital processing of scanned images for their use;
• research on the factors ensuring the long-term storage of information in the Digital Library;
• liaising with other libraries and cultural institutes to build a network for the presentation and preservation of scientific and cultural heritage of national significance.

The library has the ambition to develop long-term processes of digitization of its funds by investing in instrumental and labor resources in order to achieve a stable, efficient and flexible digital platform with freely available resources for citizens.
The Digital Library offers rich and varied digital content, available 24/7 online with the following collections:

PERIODICAL EDITIONS
At present, the collection offers titles from the period 1859–1949, as a result of the work on a long-term project for online fulltext presentation of the Plovdiv periodical publications (a total of about 500 titles). The titles of national importance, preserved only in Plovdiv, are also of high priority.

BOOKS
The collection includes statutes of professional organizations from Plovdiv, Bulgarian Revival Literature, reputable scientific publications of the publishing house of the Plovdiv National Library, first editions of the classics of Bulgarian and foreign literature, first translations, rare and valuable publications, books with ancient and original cover and printed in a special way, editions in unusual format.

GRAPHIC EDITIONS

A collection of art prints, lithographs, engravings, posters, original paintings, etc.
The valuable collection “Projects of Monumental Works”, presenting works by the artists Dimitar Kirov, Ioan Leviev, Encho Pironkov, Anastasia Kmetova, is available. Many of the projects are significant for Plovdiv and Bulgaria, many of them being realized. They are of great interest and are valuable in the need to restore destroyed originals or restoration.

CARTOGRAPHIC ISSUES
Valuable is the oldest map of Bulgaria, compiled by Bulgarian and printed in Bulgarian – “Map of the present Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia and the surrounding lands” published by Dimitar Hadji Russeet in Strasbourg, 1843. Of significant interest are also “Map of Sanjak Philibe” from 1819 and 1876, “Plan of the city of Plovdiv and the surrounding area”, 1827, “Plan Philippopolia” from 1878, “Plans of the city of Plovdiv” by Joseph Sniter and others.

ARCHIVES
The Archives Collection will feature archival documents from the Bulgarian Historical Archive, which reveal important moments from the political, economic and cultural development of Bulgaria. The documents cover the period from the seventeenth to the middle of the twentieth century.

MANUSCRIPTS
PHOTOGRAPHS
AUDIOVISUAL DOCUMENTS