site.btaEuropeana General Director Harry Verwayen Visits Bulgarian News Agency

Europeana Foundation General Director Harry Verwayen visited the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) on Thursday. He was personally welcomed by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev, and toured the agency's archives, library, reading room, and renovated newsroom.

Valchev and Desislava Sevova, head of BTA's Archives and Reference Directorate, showed the guest the collection of biodata files on Bulgarian individuals. These are organized alphabetically and include clippings from the press and BTA bulletins, Sevova explained. These files are used to prepare reference materials for birth and death anniversaries for the needs of the agency's departments.

The guest then visited the photo archive, where albums containing previews and descriptions of photographs are kept, arranged by subject.

Verwayen also saw the reference card catalog, used for quick checks of the correct spelling of names of organizations, political parties, and official titles.

The Europeana General Director was particularly impressed by the microfiche archives. Between 1983 and 1999, parts of the BTA archive were transferred to microfiche, and the original paper versions were scrapped. Due to obsolete visualization equipment, access to microfiche content has been limited.

Finally, he was shown the storage of BTA’s approximately 2 million photo negatives. Sevova explained how they are organized and that each film comes complete with information about its contents, year of capture, film number, and the photographer's name.

Verwayen also visited BTA’s digitization center, where he showed great interest in how the Agency’s archives are being digitized. He then visited the BTA Archive Hub, where visitors can access the BTA archive.

Next, he toured the main archive repository, which houses the primary collection of news bulletins. The first section contains BTA magazines. There, Valchev showed the guest the first issues of the LIK magazine, as well as some of the most recent issues of the now revived magazine.

This archive also holds BTA's bulletins dating back to 1921. Over the years, the titles have changed according to the agency’s structural developments and currently total around 150. The complete collection comprises just over 10,000 volumes, Sevova explained.

Verwayen also visited the Reference Department archive, which was established in the 1930s and organizes information by subject into thematic dossiers. These are divided into an International Section, organized by country, and a Bulgaria Section, arranged by sector. Each dossier contains press clippings and BTA bulletins on a given topic from the 1950s onward.

The special repository keeps the oldest and most valuable BTA publications, including the agency's earliest news bulletins, from the very first one issued in 1898 up to 1920. On the opposite side are the oldest items in the library’s holdings, including early printed books, explained the Archives and Reference Director.

The agency’s library holds over 90,000 volumes of specialized literature: dictionaries, reference books, and rare editions, including books printed before Bulgaria’s Liberation in 1878.

The Agency marked its 127th birthday in February 2025 by the opening of an Archive Hub, the launch of its own custom-made LIK typeface, and a revamped newsroom.