Slow Fires Still Burn: Results of a Preservation Assessment of Libraries in L’viv, Ukraine, and Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract

East Central European libraries face a serious threat of the potential disintegration of the vast majority of Slavic publications printed in the twentieth century. This loss will come as result of the combination of inferior materials used to produce most twentieth-century Slavic publications and inadequate facilities to house these collections. In an effort to gain a better understanding of the condition of Slavic publications, over the past two years, the authors have conducted collection condition surveys and reviewed the preservation operations of three major academic libraries in L’viv, Ukraine, and Sofia, Bulgaria. This paper presents the results of these surveys.