Bulgarian Information Consortium: Twenty Years of Library Cooperation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bibliotekar.2024.66.1.6Keywords:
library cooperation, leadership, polycentric management, Bulgarian Information ConsortiumAbstract
The paper presents the Bulgarian Information Consortium over more than twenty years of its activities. A few other initiatives for library cooperation in Bulgaria during the first decade of the transition to modern society, economy, and education failed or were not effective. That is why the initiators and later founders of the Consortium started the process very carefully, paying attention to various factors – tough economic situation, lack of national traditions in cooperation, psychological and behavioural characteristics of librarians and library managers in the country, historical path dependency, state of librarian and economic knowledge in the field of collective action, etc. Finally, the Bulgarian Information Consortium was established following three basic concepts: a) strong leadership, b) polycentric governance, and c) private nature.
Today, the success of the Consortium is evident. The way of the achievement of this success and practical implementation of the three theoretical concepts are presented and discussed in detail in this paper. In some respect, it is a unique Bulgarian way. However, the lessons learned along that way could be useful for other librarians initiating any form of library cooperation.
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