2024-04-30 02:20:30
Nearly 30,000 photos, books, documents and other artifacts stored in the archives of Ruse Municipality and partner cultural institutes have been digitally transformed as part of the project “Preservation and promotion of cultural heritage through digital preservation and presentation”. This became clear at the closing press conference , which took place today, with the participation of Deputy Mayor Zlatomira Stefanova, the head of the project and director of the Directorate “Economy, Investments, International Cooperation and Projects” Ivaylo Kadishev, as well as the team that worked on the project, reported the press center of the Municipality of Ruse .
“The present project is a tremendous asset as it has managed to preserve historical treasures that the common citizen would not have had the opportunity to get to know. We are satisfied that we can leave for future generations a legacy that has been preserved thanks to the efforts of everyone involved in the project,” said the deputy mayor. Zlatomira Stefanova and expressed her gratitude to the partner institutions, without which the project could not have been successfully implemented .
The technological process was explained by Albena Todorova, who is part of the digitization team. According to her, the preservation of cultural units and the collection of their data is by no means an easy process, and the work on the project was a challenge for all involved, requiring a lot of knowledge and a rich common culture.
The main goal of the project is to make the content available to the general public, thereby increasing interest in it. Presenting through modern methods breathes new life into cultural heritage and enables everyone to become familiar with cultural entities located in physically remote locations and not exposed to the public. Within the framework of the project, a digitization center was created in the building of the Municipality of Ruse at 6 “Olympi Panov” Street, for which purpose a repair was carried out and furniture and equipment corresponding to the specifics of the information subject to digitization were purchased.
8 employees underwent training “Technologies for digitalization of cultural and historical heritage” to acquire additional professional competences, and some of them were engaged full-time in the technical implementation of digitalization. The project also involved nearly 200 students from Ruse and the region, who were also trained in the use of modern technology.
The beneficiary of the project is the Municipality of Ruse, and the partners are the Regional Library “Lyuben Karavelov”, the Drama Theater “Sava Ognyanov”, the Municipal Cultural Institute, “Art Gallery” – Ruse, State Opera – Ruse, the National School of Arts “Prof. Veselin Stoyanov”. , the Regional History Museum, the Renaissance Community Center “Dawn 1866”, the State Puppet Theater – Ruse and the National Museum of Liechtenstein. Its implementation lasted for 2 years, and the financing was carried out under the “Cultural Entrepreneurship, Heritage and Cooperation” program of the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area.
The digitization process will continue in stages over the next 5 years. Digitized content can be viewed on a bilingual online platform storing the data here.