Digital libraries, portals and virtual collections

Historical chameleons

Project of the Institute of Balkan Studies and Centre of Tracology “Prof. Alexander Fol” at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, part of the National Interdisciplinary Research E-Infrastructure for Resources and Technologies for the Bulgarian Language and Cultural Heritage, integrated within the European Infrastructures CLARIN and DARIAH (CLaDA-BG).

Digital Library of the National Library "Ivan Vazov"

As part of the CLaDA-BG initiative, a research team from the “Mathematical Linguistics” section of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences developed a digital library for the needs of the National Library “Ivan Vazov” (https://digital.libplovdiv.com/), based on the CultIS platform. The platform provides both core functional components for managing digital library objects and additional services for intelligent curation, structuring, interactive visualization, and content management optimization through record linking to improve data consistency across datasets from various sources. It also includes services for digital object protection, cross-device viewing (PC, tablets, mobile devices, etc.), and a module for monitoring and controlling the operation of the technological infrastructure. The library offers access to a vast volume of digitized library items (over 90,000 objects), including digital collections of Bulgarian and international periodicals, rare and valuable books, photographs, maps, Slavic manuscripts, posters, and more from the collections of the National Library “Ivan Vazov”. The digital library has achieved the highest Technology Readiness Level – TRL9 – with full-scale implementation, deployment, and real-world use (public access since October 2022).

Digital Collections of the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

In 2023, the digital collections of the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (https://clbas.bg73.net/) were implemented on an experimental basis. The platform provides access to a large volume of digitized library items, including three subcollections from the “Bulgaristics” collection (namely the First, Second, and Third Congress on Bulgaristics—over 60 volumes containing more than 2,100 papers in 7 different languages) and offers full-text indexing to enable in-content search functionality. All data were automatically migrated from another system (dSpace) via the batch-object import module. The flexibility of this module allows similar data migrations to be carried out with minimal effort by the teams involved

In 2023, digital collections of the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (https://clbas.bg73.net/) were experimentally implemented. The platform provides access to a large volume of digitized library items, including three of the sub-collections of the Bulgarian Studies collections (including the First, Second, and Third Congresses on Bulgarian Studies—over 60 volumes containing over 2,100 reports in 7 different languages) and full-text indexing to provide content search functionality. The data in the system has been automatically migrated from another system (dSpace) using the module for importing multiple objects. The flexibility of the module allows such data migrations to be carried out with minimal effort on the part of the teams involved in the process, including the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Virtual Encyclopedia of Bulgarian Iconography

In 2021, the IMI-BAS research team carried out an experimental implementation of the data‐storage, retrieval, and curation environment for Bulgarian iconographic art, the “Virtual Encyclopedia of Bulgarian Iconography” (https://bidl.math.bas.bg/). The software development includes all of the core modules of the CultIS base platform, extended with specific functionalities and structures for user management; access of different users; reindexing; validation; thumbnail generation; data‐consistency checks across multiple objects (either on administrator request or as part of a data‐migration process); and more. The environment provides access to over 500 heterogeneous items from the realm of Bulgarian iconographic cultural heritage—iconographic objects (icons, miniatures, etc.) and related iconographic content. The Virtual Encyclopedia of Bulgarian Iconography has achieved the highest Technology Readiness Level, TRL 9, with full implementation, deployment, and real‐world use (public access since June 2021).

EU Context and Financial Support