For the past few years, the library has suffered several other floods caused by the rise of underground water below the building. “When the river rises, the level of the water, which is underneath the BAC building is also rising,” Ivanova-Bell said. “This is why we sometimes have water coming through the floor of the basement.” According to Todorov, the underground water penetrates the basement floor also because membrane underneath the building is damaged. Preventive measures The correspondence between the insurance company, called OZOK Ins, and the Facilities office is still in progress. The contract between the two institutions requires AUBG to pay for part of the damage expenses. “It’s a small amount of money that is not seriously influencing the budget of the Facilities department or the budget of the university,” Todorov said. In the event The creation of a digital archive of the students’ print publications was first prompted by the strong interest of AUBG alumni to get access to their past work. AUBG Aspecter, i view and that OZOK Ins. recovers the losses, the insurance money is estimated to be more than the original net value of the damaged books, magazines and journals. The Facilities office is planning on reinvesting it back to the library. One of the possible projects is to connect the library to the Building Management System (BMS) installed in the Student Center to measure the humidity and temperature. “This way we will be monitoring the basement of the library 24/7, not only when the security guards or the cleaning ladies are inside,” Todorov said. Preventive measures also include water wells that redirect the underground water before it enters the building and a pump in the basement to remove water that gets through. Students' Publications Digital Collection the hydro-insulation This year’s flooding inspired the librarians to push themselves further in the implementation of the Students’ Publications Digital Collection. The project was launched in October as an expansion of the longestablished AUBG Digital Collections, which until then, compiled only the senior theses collected over the years. Verve were the first three digitized periodicals in the collection. “These periodicals carry the history of the university,” Ivanova-Bell said. “They were created in the years of the new democracy in Bulgaria. Students back then were fighting not only for their student rights but also for their civic and democratic rights.” The team is currently digitizing the AUBG Literary Magazine. Next on the list are Agora, Vox, defacto and Griffin. The Students’ publications project is among the library’s top priorities for the 2019/2020 academic year. “Our goal is to start thinking more strategically about the ways to preserve all the students’ output from the different departments,” Ivanova-Bell said. This plan includes creating and administering a new digital collection where students will be able to deposit their projects. Damaged books, ground floor; Steliyana Yordanova for AUBG Daily Fall 2019 | AUBG Daily 3
4 Publizr Home