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BOOK DONATION
Since 1989, western literature and expertise have
been in great demand in Bulgaria. At the same time, schools,
libraries and individual students cannot afford to buy books
published abroad. Over the past four years, the CSD's Book Donation
initiative has become very popular in Bulgaria. Thousands of
recipients eagerly await the distribution of each shipment of
books.
CSD started its book donation activities as an
official partner to the US Sabre Foundation in November 1990. The
Sabre Foundation collects university level textbooks and other
specialized books published in the United States within the
previous three or four years, and ships them to Bulgaria for free
distribution. For its part, CSD is responsible for selecting the
most useful and relevant titles for Bulgaria. The books are then
processed and distributed to universities, research institutes,
secondary schools, public libraries, hospitals and health centers,
and to thousands of individual recipients. The Open Society Fund,
Sofia contributes to the cost of book processing and
distribution.
Total Number of Books Donated in 1991
Over 121,000 books and textbooks
Market Value of Books Donated in 1991
More than .6 million
Number of Recipients in 1991
Over 320 institutions and 5600 individuals
At the beginning of 1995, CSD processed and prepared
for distribution the ninth shipment of books donated by the Sabre
Foundation. This shipment consisted of 10,550 volumes of 39 titles
mostly in economics and statistics. The give-away campaign began in
February. The books were distributed among 75 organizations,
including universities, public libraries, research institutes,
state and administrative agencies, companies, and more than 1500
individual recipients &emdash; students, teachers, and others.
The tenth shipment arrived in late September. It
included 9000 volumes of medical books. The processing and
arrangement of the books took about one month. The distribution
procedure began in November. The list of recipients included the
libraries of medical universities and larger hospitals in Sofia and
all regional centers in the country.
An official exhibition of donated medical books was
held at the library of the Military Medical Academy in Sofia in
November. The event was attended by representatives of CSD, Open
Society Fund, the Cultural Attache to the Embassy of the United
States in Sofia, and many others. Informal exhibitions were
organized in other recipient hospitals and institutions with the
goal of publicizing the donations among the medical community.
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