The more I travel in Bulgaria the more I am impressed by three things:

• the incredible beauty of the country and friendliness of the people
• the people’s commitment and passion about maintaining their democratic society
• the librarian’s desire to improve library service for the people they serve

My interest in Bulgaria began seven years ago when Iskra Mahailova, then at the National Library, became an ALA/USIA fellow and spent 6 months working at the Colorado State Library. That led to a family vacation to Bulgaria, then a lecture, tour and then three librarian trips where we participated in conferences and visited libraries around the state.

This article will focus on the trip just completed in June, 2000. Information about conferences to be held in 2001 and articles about other trips can be found at

www.sni.net/bulgaria.

Our trip to Bulgaria this year had a very different purpose than past years. This year we came focused to do only one conference on one very important them: Public Access to Government Information through Libraries. We also wanted to honor the six Bulgarian libraries who had asked to form partnerships with Colorado libraries to increase cultural understanding and to help all the libraries build collections.

As always with Bulgaria, we got much more than we bargained for.

Last year we met Governor Radimir Enev from the Stara Zagora Region of Bulgaria. He was struggling with a directive from the national government to make government information available to the public and didn’t have clue how to proceed. The National Parliament was considering then and has since passed a new law on Public Access to Public Information. The opening purpose of the law states that the people of Bulgaria should have access to information about their government "in order to form an opinion of their own" about government activities. How could it be better said?

We offered to do a conference in Stara Zagora this year that would focus on libraries as the avenue to distribute government information. We spent most of the year planning this conference. We had presentations by me on the main topic, by Mary Redmond from the New York State Library on how you why a government entity would want to give public information to a library; how a library can convince a government agency to provide the information, and how a library would organize the information for public access. Bonnie McCune from the State Library blew them away with a presentation on marketing your library to the public (frankly, a new idea for them). Roumi Radenski, a Bulgarian now living in the U.S. and working at the Library of Congress, spoke on automating government document access and delivery.

The conference was attended by the Governor who gave opening remarks and by his staff. His PR person, Daniela Miteva, attended and other staff. Mrs. Miteva is also an elected member of the local parliament. Of course, local librarians were there from the public libraries and the university libraries. There was actually some tension in the room (surprise!). After our formal presentation and during discussion, Mrs. Duncheva of the public library basically said she had been asking for government documents and they government had been reluctant to give them. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Break. After the break, Mrs. Miteva said that the Governor had now committed that the Regional Government would provide information to the libraries and that she would see that the local parliament would as well.

Now we see if the governmental entities follow through with deposits and if the libraries do in fact organize them for easy public access. A lot of hesitation on both sides.

Our second main purpose was to visit our partner libraries. There are six partnerships in place (Bulgarian libraries are all named after historical or literacy figures so I’m just going to give you the town):

Jefferson County Public Library Sofia Public Library

Boulder Public Library Varna Public Library

Bemis Public Library in Littleton Stara Zagora Public Library

Douglas Public Library District Dobritz Public Library

Eagle Valley Library District Veliko Turnovo Public Library

Aurora Public Library Bourgas Public Library

As a Partner Library in the Colorado Lib4rary Association/Bulgarian Library Association project, all of these libraries automatically became Sister Libraries in the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS). NCLIS provides a very nice plaque, signed by Hillary Clinton, the Honorary Chair. While I was presentting these plaques to the Liberians and mayors in Bulgaria, the International Sister Cities convention was being held right here in downtown Denver and plaques were being presented to our libraries as well.

Our partnerships are just beginning. Veliko Turnovo and Eagle Valley have the most interactive program going. They have already sent one box of books (test case) and there are four more ready to be mailed. The VT librarians also suggested a pen-pal program among the young kids and that is underway. They have been exchanging e-mail and snail-mail letters for several months. This fall, senior citizens in Eagle will make Christmas tree ornaments for Bulgarian libraries.

Other partnerships are just getting started. E-mail in Bulgaria isn’t always reliable and seems to float in and out of existence. Georgie Beltchev of the Sofia Public Library, however, was able to come to the American Library Association Conference in Chicago where he met Bill Knott. They are looking at a way for Mr. Beltchev to visit Jefferson County after next year’s ALA meeting.

We made presentations to all six library directors and either the mayor or a representative from his/her office. The Sister Libraries program recognizes that most local libraries get their support because the local town government provides the funding so they are eager to recognize the mayors as well.

In Sofia, the presentation to Mr. Beltchev and Mayor Sofinanski was made at the American Information Center with Sofia librarians looking on. In Stara Zagora we made the presentation at the reception following the conference. As it turns out, both Mr. Miteva from the local parliament and Mrs. Krusteva from the Mayor’s office BOTH wanted the plaque so I had to present it twice and ask them to share it. Mrs. Duncheva accepted for the library.

In Bourgas, we met in the government administrative offices with local librarians watching as Kostadina Hrousanova, the library director and Marusja Ljubcheva, the Deputy Mayor accepted plaques. In Varna we met in the mayors office. Bulgarians are often very formal and this was the epitome of formality. Mayor Kiril Yordanov had his own translator and I had mine. He had newspaper and TV press on hand to film it all. He sat on one side of the table and I sat on the other, making the presentation a little awkward. He didn’t smile except when he pointed out that Hilary Clinton had signed the plaque (which for the first and only time I forgot to mention.) (Clinton is a big favorite in Bulgaria because he visited Sofia last year.) Library Director Emiliya Steneva-Milkova accepted for the library with a big smile.

Dobritch is north of Varna on the Black Sea and far enough away we could not visit it this year. But Library Director Elena Koeva Urtchenko came to Varna and we repositioned all the chairs in the mayor’s conference room and filmed the presentation to her as well.

Finally, in Veliko Turnovo, we met in the library director’s office and talked for a long while before the presentation. Director Sasha Georgieva told us about the library and we talked about American libretto programs. Presentations were made to Mrs. Gerogieva and to the Head of Cultural Programs, Veliko Ivanova. Later that afternoon we met the mayor, Dr. Rumen Rashev, a former neurologist, now mayor. He is as different from the Varna mayor as possible. We met on the patio of the beautiful Arbanassi Palace, summer home of the Russian communists with a vista of mountains that rivals anything we have in Colorado. The mayor shared his dreams for the economic development of Veliko Turnovo and told us that the library director was retiring and he would make sure the new librarian supported this partner program.

While in Bulgaria this June I was privileged to be asked to speak at the organizing meeting of a new group in Bulgaria. It is called Association Tolerance and is composed of Mayors and Vice-Mayors of small and medium-sized towns committed to demonstrating to the world that ethnic groups in a Balkan country can live in peace. I’ll let them speak for themselves. Here are their three main objectives as translated into English for me.

• Introducing society with the problems of the citizens from medium and small municipalities in the mountainous, semi-mountainous, and economically deprived regions and also in the regions of a mixed ethnic (in terms of culture and religion) origin, their needs, care which society would provide for them in view of their domestic life harmonization and social and economic adaptation
• Supporting municipalities in these regions for the development, judgement and implementation of effective local policy
• Coordination of national strategies, local programs and interest for the development of these municipalities in relation to preserving their administrative autonomy.

There were several speakers in addition to me at the opening session. Because of the focus on ethnic diversity, there were speakers from different ethnic backgrounds, even the Turkish ambassador, and from various economic development organizations, such as the European Union. While predominantly Bulgarian, the Mayors in this Association Tolerance serve communities that include sizeable populations of Turks, Muslims, Gypsies, Macedonians, and Romanians.

I felt very honored to be asked to speak. I pointed out that America has always struggled with integrating different ethnic groups into our society economically while still helping such groups maintain their own identify and culture. Sometimes we have been successful and sometimes less so. Of course, I mentioned the role of libraries and information centers in helping local communities develop economically and in preserving and celebrating different cultures within a community.

The Bulgarians are very conscious of their position in the Balkan regions. They see themselves as a "New Model" of how a Balkan country and its people can live in peace and integrate ethnic groups into an economically developed community. They are committed to meeting all the requirements to join both NATO and the European
Union. They are anxious to receive all the assistance they can. The speakers at the opening of the Association Tolerance mentioned this "new model" many times and they see their association in playing a role maintaining and enhancing the model.

Since this meeting I have received an e-mail from Nahit Zia, Deputy Mayor

of the Municipality of Gotse Delchev, a small town in southwestern Bulgarian asking for advice on setting up a business information center

Later in the week I was able to meet Senator Ahmet Dogan, a member of the Bulgarian National Parliament, the political leader of the Tolerance Association, and leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF). MRF is the third largest political party in Bulgaria. Senator Dojan has a PhD in Philosophy and was in prison between 1986-89 as leader of an underground organization seeking restoration of the rights of Bulgarian Turks. Senator Dojan is one of the sponsors of the Access to Public Information Act passed by the Bulgarian National Parliament that I mentioned in last month’s article.

Like many Bulgarians, he spoke to me through a translator but his body language told me he understood my English before it was translated. I commended him on the new law but said it lacked the means to organize all of the government information across agency lines and make it easily available to the Bulgarian citizen. I suggested he consider an amendment that would create an official depository program through libraries. He smiled and said he would consider it.

Meeting with the Senator and I were the two woman who are the Executive Directors of the new Association Tolerance, Ajdjan Dieva and Kirilua Angelova. Ms Dieva and Angelova specifically asked for information about municipal government in the United States. They also expressed interest in having some Mayors or city officials from the United States, particularly Colorado, visit Bulgaria next year. While Colorado will be the focus, we are also open to Mayors or city officials from other states to come as well.

The Mayors or city officials from Colorado will be asked to participate in three conferences with Bulgarian Mayors, and visit several of the towns that the Mayors serve.

I will be sure the Bulgarian libraries are on the schedule.

I’m also anxious to see if our conferences and urging for public libraries to be depositories of local government information have had any success.

We would like to particularly thank our sponsors who helped make the conference on "Public Access to Government Information" possible. Their contributions supported conference speakers, translators, handouts, and presentations to the partner libraries. Our sponsors are:

Sirs Mandarin, Inc.

Friends of the Lone Tree Library

Follett Software Company

Sagebrush Corporation

JNR Associates

Pattern Research

Bulgarian Library Association

Colorado Library Association

Colorado State Library