Abstract:
Subject of this study are the issues related with the establishment, development, and tasks of library-informatics training at the University of Sofia, as a model of higher academic education. This model was shaped by the dominating academic paradigm within the academic community throughout various historical stages in its development.
The debate on library education, which began in the 19th century, saw its place within the circle of history and linguistics. The concept within the University for the training of librarians and archivist envisaged a specialization within the Faculty of History and Linguistics, stepping on previous humanitarian education. In the second half of the 20th century library science was already consolidated as a separate field and a specialized Chair in Library science was created. In this way postgraduate library education in Bulgaria was officially recognized, and graduates are professionally employed in research libraries.
A new transformation set in the educational model with a view of training specialists for the system of scientific an technical information, in the 60s of the 20th century, calling for a double academic training – training in a branch and library training. The subject at the University of Sofia underwent a restructuring with a specialization with a scientific information profile. Post graduate specialization and re-training, has been introduced, carried out jointly with a Training Center in Informatics with the University of Sofia and the Central Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). The characteristic national specifics of the Bulgarian curricula are as follows: continuity on the training of archivist specialists, library-bibliography and informatics specialists, an early transition from library training to library-informatics education, maintaining the position of higher librarianship education within the university curriculum.
The new paradigm of LIS education took shape at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. The restored subject of Library information science (1993) has been working to defend its new position in the academic community with its curriculum, aiming to achieve the educational aims with the university environment – an interdisciplinary synthesis, inner-institutional mobility of the teaching staff, in order to maintain higher professional standards. This new paradigm is directed to the integration of LIS education in Bulgaria – an European education area and towards the free movement of lecturers and students.
