site.btaBTA Archive Is Treasure Trove of National Importance, Head of Agency's Archives and Reference Department Says
The Bulgarian News Agency's archive is a treasure trove of national importance, preserving more than 125 years of Bulgarian and world history, BTA Archives and Reference Department head Desislava Sevova said here on Monday. She was speaking at a special hybrid session on "Rethinking the Value of Scientific Research in the Age of Open Science," held as part of the 17th Education and Research in the Information Society (ERIS) annual international conference.
Sevova pointed out that the BTA archive is organized in the Archives and Reference Department (since 2021), which includes Historical Archive, Reference, Photo and Video Archive, and the BTA Library. The archive holds millions of pages, hundreds of thousands of photographs, and tens of thousands of books and reference materials. Through the BTA Archive Hub in Sofia, the Agency's archive is accessible to journalists, researchers, and cultural institutions.
"BTA has built a digitization centre with state-of-the-art equipment and new archive storage facilities with optimal storage conditions," Sevova said, adding that as of September 15, 2025, the data is as follows: 5,300,000 pages of bulletins and magazines, of which about 3,700,000 pages (74%) have been digitized; 960,000 pages of bulletins on microfiche, of which 900,000 (94%) digitized; a photo archive of approximately 1,800,000 photos, with plans to digitize some 650,000 with accompanying text and approximately 430,000 photos already digitized (66% of the planned volume and 24% of the entire archive).
"The BTA archive combines historical memory and modern technologies. It is a reliable witness to the past and a tool for the future, with its digitization and open access securing its place in the national and European cultural and information environment," Sevova noted.
The forum, which continues on Tuesday, brings together international experts, politicians, librarians, and researchers to discuss open access, libraries, and knowledge infrastructures; digitization and cultural heritage; philosophies and trust in open science; and scientific data management.
The event is made possible by the AURA project, funded by the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).
/RY/
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