The visits to Bulgarian libraries were great, and they helped give me a bit of context for the real reason we were there: to talk to Bulgarian library directors about how we do things. Seeing a couple of libraries - even if they were unrepresentative of the whole picture - meant that we had some common ground. There were 19 delegates from all ...

Old Communist Party building + shoehorned-in library = this: We met the Library Director, Georgi Belchev, in his office upstairs. He gave us the facts and figures - 1,000,000 items in stock, three (yes, three) branches - and described the 15 departments in the Municipal Library. We know already that there are 3,000-odd Chitalishte libraries in ...

This was my first visit to a former Communist country. Some people might argue that living in Sheffield for a year (which I did in 2003-4) counts, but Bulgaria has serious post-Communist issues. But then again, they've been coping with all sorts for centuries. Under Ottoman rule in the 1850s, there was a revival in Bulgarian culture. Wealthy ...

I'm supposed to be presenting to the library's Operational Management Team tomorrow afternoon, on the lessons I learned on my trip to Bulgaria. My photos are on Flickr, but I've been meaning to get my thoughts down on (virtual) paper. It was an interesting trip, not just for the reasons my Higher-Ups will be interested in. I'll write a few ...