BTA and BNC of ICOM signed a long-term partnership agreement

The Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) and the Bulgarian National Committee (BNC) of ICOM have concluded a long-term partnership agreement. The document was signed by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev and the Chair of the BNC of ICOM Prof. Svetla Dimitrova at the BTA National Press Club in Stara Zagora.

“Museums are the ones that preserve the memory of Bulgaria. And now we are completing the joint project started at the beginning of the year with the Bulgarian Museums Association, to which the Bulgarian National Committee (BNC) of ICOM is also joining, to prepare a special section in Bulgarian and English with a map of all museums in Bulgaria.” This was stated during the signing ceremony by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev. He emphasised that according to the register of the Ministry of Culture, there are 176 museums in our country. The special section will publish news from each of them – preliminary information from the cultural calendars of the museums and information about the events that have taken place, and they will be freely available for use by all media with reference to BTA.

With the help of the associations “BNC of ICOM” and “Bulgarian Museums”, BTA will offer contracts to all museums in Bulgaria for the systematic provision of materials with regulated copyrights and partnership for the events organised by them, so that in a period of two years there will be signed contracts with all museums for the publication of at least one news item every month from each museum in Bulgaria. With 176 museums with at least 12 news items per year, this means more than 2,000 news items each year from Bulgarian museums, which will be freely available for use by all media in Bulgaria and abroad.

The Director General of BTA emphasised that it is no coincidence that the contract is being signed on the eve of the national holiday – March 3, in Stara Zagora. Valchev pointed out that for the first time, news from the BNC of ICOM was published in BTA on May 18, 1978 and was related to the upcoming celebration of the International Museum Day.

So far, the Agency has signed contracts with ten museums and two galleries. “The goal is to have a map of museums ready by May 18, when it is International Museum Day, together with the Association of Bulgarian Museums and the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM, and to start filling it with news,” said Kiril Valchev.

The Chairman of the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM, Prof. Svetla Dimitrova, stated that the signing of this agreement is an extremely important event for both structures. “Our organisation is mainly composed of museum experts. It is not an organisation of institutions, but rather of individual members, although we also have 21 institutional members – mainly museums,” said Prof. Dimitrova. She emphasised that it is extremely important that the work that museum experts do is well presented to the public. “There is a neglect of this work, and in fact the greatest wealth of every country is its cultural and historical heritage – what it has inherited, preserved and further developed,” said the Chairman of the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOM. She added that she is convinced that with the help of the signed agreement, people’s attitude towards museums and museum experts will be changed and it will be proven that their work is extremely important.

At the end of the event, Kiril Valchev presented the Chairman of the Chairman of the BNC of ICOM, Prof. Svetla Dimitrova, with issues of the LIK magazine, in which Bulgarian museums have a strong presence: “Bulgaria in UNESCO” and “Bulgaria’s Cultural Heritage Travels the World”.

The Bulgarian National Committee (BNC) of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) was established in 1967. Its first chairman from 1968 to 1972 was Prof. Hristo Gandev, director of the Ethnographic Institute with a Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). As a result of the active work of the National Committee of ICOM, it was assigned to organise a session of the International Committee of Archaeological and Historical Museums in October 1979 in Sofia.

At the end of the 1980s, the organisation’s activities waned and were suspended. In 1994, at the initiative of the National Center for Museums, Galleries and Fine Arts under the Ministry of Culture, steps were taken to restore membership in ICOM, which became a fact in 1995.

The statute of the National Committee of ICOM from February 1999 was signed by Albert Benbasat as chairman. The chairmen of the organisation were successively Prof. Albert Benbasat (1995 – 2004), Eng. Alexander Valchev (2005 – 2011), Corresponding Member of BAS Mila Santova (2011 – 2013), Dr. Lyubava Konova (2013 – 2014) and Corresponding Member of BAS Mila Santova (2015 – 2021). From 2021 to the present, the Chairman of the BNC of ICOM is Prof. Svetla Dimitrova.

In July 2012, the BNC of ICOM was registered under Bulgarian law as a non-profit association, according to a BTA report on the official website of the BNC of ICOM.

BTA recalls that in January this year, BTA and the Bulgarian Museums Association signed a media partnership agreement.

Source: BTA