Category: Library News

The museum has been collecting its fund since its inception in order to make it available to the staff, the artists and to scholars researching humor and satire.

The collection contains nearly 30,000 items dating from the late 18th century to the present day. In parallel with gathering anything important and curious from the Bulgarian literature and art within the funny genre, the international life of the Museum strongly characterizes the collection: from Egypt to Costa Rica, through Estonia to Canada, we are the custodians of printed treasures that we can confidently claim cannot be found anywhere else in Bulgaria (it remains to be seen if this claim will be extended to the Balkans, Europe and the world)!

Opening: 16 May, 16:00, Floor 3

At the official opening of the new space, visitors to the Museum will be able to explore the modernized premises on Floor 3, feel the atmosphere in the reading room, where a small part of most of the groups in the fund are currently arranged on the shelves, including books and periodicals in over 20 languages on the subject of caricature, ethnography, painting, photography, as well as short poetic forms, intriguing albums plus the Museum’s own editions and catalogs adored for generations. Due to the huge volume of the fund, the process is taking place in stages, and in the upcoming months the Library will take the necessary steps to prepare for its work with external audiences.

During the launch presentation, guests will hear not only the next steps of the Library’s detailed development strategy, but also be able to give feedback and ideas about the process of creating a unique place for community events.

We await you with excitement and a smile – which is always with us even when we cannot find our reading glasses in a hurry!

Take a sneak peek at the new Library space, briefly presented by our Events Expert and Museum Educator, focused on Literature and Book Collection.

The Project:
The project “The Address of Satire – Creating an Exhibition from the Collection of the Museum House of Humor and Satire – Gabrovo“, is filed by the Program “Cultural Entrepreneurship, Heritage, and Cooperation” financed by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Areа.
With the help of the funds from the project, in 2023, the process of reconstructing and relocating the Library began – the books were first moved from the then storage facilities on Floor 4 to a temporary warehouse. After purchasing library software, their step-by-step extraction, sorting and entering into the system started, including a description, which in the future will connect the processing of books to the borrowing by readers, as well as the visualization of the fund in an electronic catalog. The goal is to keep up with the new possibilities for creating a digital archive as well as not to limit the availability in the Library lists geographically only to Gabrovo.

From October 30th to November 10th, the new cataloging software for the specialized library of the Museum of Humor and Satire in Gabrovo was successfully delivered and installed. The event was marked by training provided by representatives of the software company, focusing on the use of the modules “Books,” “Periodicals,” “Reader Services,” and “Internet Catalog.”

The new software and library consumables – barcode labels and a laser reader – are a crucial part of the Museum’s strategy for digitizing the existing resources in the book collection. With their assistance, an online catalog will be developed, available to both local and non-local readers, providing information about the availability of books and periodicals in the Museum’s collection.

Currently, there is a phased introduction of the book units into the software for their digital inventory. This is a step before their final arrangement in the renewed space of the library, which includes a visitor’s reading room and storage. From the spring of 2024, they will be accessible to visitors upon the completion of the ongoing renovation activities within the project.

The Museum of Humor and Satire in Gabrovo continually strives for modernization and improvement of its services, and this progress is part of our efforts to facilitate access to our rich cultural heritage.

www.eeagrants.bg

Project № BGCULTURE-1.001-0039 “The Address of Satire – Creating an Exhibition from the Fund of the Museum House of Humor and Satire – Gabrovo and accompanying program on the role and boundaries of satire and its exhibition in renovated spaces in the Museum,” funded under Program RA14 “Cultural Entrepreneurship, Heritage, and Cooperation,” co-financed by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2014-2021.