National Library of Moldova inaugurates book museum

Chisinau, 14 June /MOLDPRES/ - A book museum was inaugurated at the National Library (BNRM) today. The basis of this museum represents the collections of the Old and Rare Book Section, which presently has more than 30,000 documents. The oldest book from the aforementioned collections is titled The Category of Aristotel, published in Venice in 1551.     

Contacted by MOLDPRES, the director of the National Library, Elena Pintilei, said that the Book Museum was the only one from Moldova through the documentary, historical and artistic content of the books displayed for the wide public. The museum’s goal is to promote and turn to good account the evidence of the past, expressed through the most important invention of the mankind – the Book, as a unique object of the cultural heritage of the national and international importance, as well as of the printing art, as source of information, means of education and training, complex subject matter.    

According to the BNRM director, by the opening of the Book Museum, the National Library tends to achieve the following goals: diversification of the forms of promotion and communication of the patrimony; getting out of anonymity of the millenary written cultural heritage; access to heritage documents with no restrictions; raising the awareness of the public opinion on the book as the most important phenomenon of the historical culture and science for a sustainable society; inclusion of the Book Museum in the national tourism circuit. “We are sure that the Book Museum will contribute to the revival of the collective memory of the modern society,” Elena Pintilei stressed.     

Attending the event, the state secretary in the culture sector, Andrei Chistol, congratulated the organizers for the initiative to promote the nation’s written treasure. “The facilitation of the wide public’s access to the documents managed by the Old and Rare Books Section – documents of inestimable value, will contribute to the development of the critical and analytical spirit of readers,” the official said.  

At present, the Library’s collection comprises about 2.6 million material units. Annually, the BNRM collection is completed with about 16,000 new documents. The Library has manuscripts, books, newspapers, magazines, reproductions, stamps and drawings, posters, post cards, photos, maps, musical scores, discs, cassettes, movies, micro-formats, etc., for the placement of which a shelves room of more than 32 km is needed. The National Library each year receives about 1,000 documents through international exchange of publications. If one daily reads five publications of BNRM, then to take knowledge of its entire collection, he/she will need more than 2,000 years.    

(Reporter N. Roibu, editor A. Raileanu)