site.btaBTA, Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM Sign Long-Term Partnership Agreement

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and the Bulgarian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) have signed a long-term partnership agreement, the two organizations said on Monday. The document was signed by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev and the Chair of the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM, Prof. Svetla Dimitrova, at BTA’s National Press Club in Stara Zagora.

Under the agreement, and with the support of the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM and the Association of Bulgarian Museums, BTA will offer partnership contracts to all museums in Bulgaria for the regular supply of copyright-cleared content and cooperation in promoting their events. The aim is that within two years contracts will be concluded with all museums, ensuring the publication of at least one news item per museum every month. With 176 museums and a minimum of 12 news items annually from each, this would result in more than 2,000 news stories a year about Bulgarian museums, which will be freely available for use by all media in Bulgaria and abroad.

At the signing ceremony, Valchev said museums safeguard Bulgaria’s collective memory and explained that the agreement completes a joint project launched earlier in 2026 with the Bulgarian Museums Association, now joined by the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM. He explained that the initiative provides for the creation of a special section in Bulgarian and English, featuring an interactive map of all museums in the country. According to the Ministry of Culture’s register, there are 176 museums in Bulgaria. This section will publish news from each of them, including advance information from their cultural calendars and reports on events already held, and the content will be freely accessible to all media with attribution to BTA.

Prof. Dimitrova described the agreement as an extremely important step for both organizations. She said that ICOM’s Bulgarian National Committee is composed mainly of museum professionals rather than institutions, although it also has 21 institutional members, mostly museums. She stressed that it is vital for the work of museum experts to be properly presented to society, pointing out that their efforts are often underestimated despite the fact that a country’s greatest asset is its cultural and historical heritage – what it has inherited, preserved and developed further. She said she was confident the partnership would help change public attitudes toward museums and museum professionals and demonstrate the significance of their work.

The Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM was established in 1967. Its first chair, from 1968 to 1972, was Prof. Hristo Gandev, then Director of the Ethnographic Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. As a result of the committee’s active work, it was entrusted with organizing a session of the International Committee of Archaeological and Historical Museums in Sofia in October 1979.

In the late 1980s, the organization’s activities declined and were eventually suspended. In 1994, at the initiative of the National Centre for Museums, Galleries and Fine Arts at the Ministry of Culture, steps were taken to restore Bulgaria’s membership in ICOM, which was formally reinstated in 1995.