Digitization and Interculturalism – University Library “Svetozar Marković” in the Project «Itinéraires balkaniques. Collection numérique en réseau» –

Gordana Nedeljkov ; Jelena Andonovski ; Zoran Bajin

Review of the National Center for Digitization, Tome 24 (2014) no. 1.

Résumé

This paper presents one of the projects that University Library “Svetozar Marković” is involved in. The project «Itinéraires balkaniques. Collection numérique en réseau» («Balkan itineraries. Digital collection in a network») is the first attempt to create an online digital collection of rare and precious works, namely itineraries on the Balkan Peninsula and the Levant that were being written in French from the 16th to the 19th century, which are kept in the major libraries of the Balkan Francophone countries: University Library «St. Kliment Ohridski» in Sofia, University Library «Svetozar Marković» in Belgrade and National Library of Romania in Bucharest. These travel stories are important historical sources, but they can also support the development of interculturalism in the Balkans and neutralization of the existing antagonistic stereotypes about the common history of the Balkan peoples. The duration of the project is 18 month (1st October 2011 - 31st March 2013) and the coordinator is Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, Bureau Europe centrale et orientale. The project is divided into several main phases: the creation of a bibliographic database of itineraries on the Balkans written in French (16th-19th centuries); the selection of representative works for digitization, with an emphasis on the works which connect Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania and could instigate the development of an intercultural vision of the common past of these countries and Turkey through a neutral carrier such as the French language; the definition of form and compatibility of the digitization format to harmonize the practice of the partner libraries; the digitization of the selected books and creation of scientific comments to these works; building a website that will contain digitized texts, with emphasis on intercultural education in the region; the publication of a multilingual collective bibliography.