Summary: The project envisages the documentation and preservation of cultural heritage, the creation of a Digital Centre "Culture and History" and a network for providing intellectual access to it in cultural institutions and organizations: libraries, museums, galleries and local archival collections of partners from North and Central Bulgaria.
The modern digitisation centre will unite the efforts of related cultural institutions in the preservation and digitisation of the cultural and documentary heritage they are responsible for.
The project enables the unification of digitisation processes and the creation of full-text databases.
As a result, the digital centre will provide broad and easy access to the cultural heritage in the cultural institutions of the North Central region of Bulgaria, providing, in addition to the physical use of cultural property, the possibility of intellectual access to them, without damaging or compromising them in order to preserve the original objects in the long term for future generations.
Project goal: The Digital Centre North + will provide the necessary technological base for digitizing, preserving and making available in a European context the cultural, literary, documentary, historical and architectural heritage preserved in the cultural partner institutions and organizations of the Central North region and other demographic areas of Bulgaria. The digital conversion for the specialised collections of manuscripts, old printed books, Renaissance periodicals, old photographs, local archives of immovable cultural heritage and museum exhibits will provide unimpeded access with European dimensions to Bulgarian cultural heritage. At the same time, the activities of the partner organisations will be intensified in the realisation of their preservation functions, which in recent years have remained on the back burner due to lack of funds to purchase modern technical equipment and lack of capacity in the institutions participating in the project. The process of involving volunteers - Roma and Bulgarians from the Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance "Amalipe" is twofold, on the one hand it will increase the capacity of the digital center and will be provided with human resources, and on the other hand the participants will acquire the necessary library and digital competence needed to implement the activities of the project. The common national responsibility to preserve the nation's memory for future generations will be upheld.
Target groups and impact: All segments of civil society: academics, students, pupils, representatives of minority Roma communities, employees in institutions and organisations, inhabitants of the localities.
With the newly created digital repositories, the project will influence a wide social layer of users by providing the respective target group with information resources relevant to their needs: academics - the scientific potential of lecturers and PhD students, students of Bulgarian philology, Balkan studies, library science and theology of the VTU "St. St. Cyril and Methodius" and other higher educational institutions in the region and the country, students from the primary and upper school in the classes of the program for the study of Renaissance literature, representatives of the Roma community in the search for local history materials about the participation and contribution of the community to the overall development of Roma life, residents of the settlements who are interested in culture and history.
