ID: 143

KOMITSKI, Ivan; PETKOVA – ENCHEVA, Milena 

Curriculum

Master in history and philosophy (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, 1985). Made a specialty of classified information defense and archival institutions organization in Germany (2004) and USA (2006).

Lecturer in the Ministry of Internal Affairs Academy (2003-2007) and the State University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (2007-2009). From 1985 till 1988 he was a specialist in Central state historical archive at the Main archival administration (Council of ministers).

During the period 1988-2008 he was working in the Ministry of Interior Archive, where proceeds all hierarchy levels from expert to director of department “Information and archive”.

In 2008–2009 takes the lead of the same department in State agency “National security”

Has a working knowledge of Spanish, Russian and English.

 

A graduate of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”(1996-2002), successfully defended PH D thesis on “Economic and dedemographic development of Eastern Upper Thrace during XVI c.”, (2007) a research fellow of the American Research Institute in Istanbul (2008). In 2012 started as an expert at the Sofia State Archives and from 2013 she performs the task of an international officer of the Archives State Agency of Bulgaria. Participated in a number of conferences related to ottoman studies, preservation and use of documents for historical and archival research. Speaks English, has a working knowledge of French, Turkish and Russian.

Brief summary:

The presentation presents the experience of the Bulgarian archivists in sharing data in internet by creating its own archival platform linking the five digital sites of the Archives agency. It is focused on public access, open data and croudsourcing experience facing the new challenges of  the “social” medias in the means of “social” archives.

Content:

The Archives State Agency of Bulgaria is one of the Bulgarian institutions responsible for the aqusition, storage, preservation and use of documents. At the same time our archive has to face the challenges of the present dealing with issues like to keep traditional audience from one side and attract new users from another.

In 2012 the new archival platform – „Archives are speaking“ was created. The idea was to share the most interesting documents in internet and attract the public interest in our activities. As a former communist country it was well estimated that topic related to the former Communist party will enjoy the constant interest among journalists, historians, archivists, politics and even the general public. We went further and created a site on the “Protocols of Politburo (Political Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party” kept at the national archives.

Our second site on the same archival platform was “Military officers died in the Balkan Wars 1912-1913”. Its creation was provoked by the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the first Balkan War. 

Next site on the same archival platform   was “Police files of important public figures before 1944”. Once preserved at the Ministry of Interior, now the police files of important public figures were on-line and attracted the public interest.

The site “The Saving of the Bulgarian Jews” attracted the international audience and was released on the same platform as well.

The newest site “Photoarchives.BG” gave opportunity to the users to contact us and change archival descriptions. For the first time we offered the opportunity to inquire a copy of a record on-line.

International projects – APE net and APEx .

New projects.

Scientific contribution:

Public accsess is of great importance for the archival institutions. The newst and challanging way to promote and present the archival collections is to share documents on archival platforms. Sharing of documents has its own limitations refering issues like open data and public accsess. At the same time archival platforms give opportunity to historians make their research on-line (in residence), offer facilities for journalists, public figures and general public to read records, correct archival discriptions and cooperate with the archivists and the implementation of Archives Web 2.0. 

Keywords:

archival platforms, data, standards of archival descriptions.