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Computers will be installed in 450 Bulgarian libraries

Wed, Nov 04 2009 13:13 CET 2044 Views
Computers will be installed in 450 Bulgarian libraries

National Library in Sofia

Photo: Nikolai Doychinov

More than 450 libraries across Bulgaria will be fitted out with computers and linked to the internet, Dnevnik daily reported on November 4 2009.

Computer and educational software will be made available to all library staff, which will constitute part of the first phase of Glob@l Libraries Bulgaria, the report says.

The programme was developed and initiated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF), with the intent of securing information access through the Internet to more than a thousand Bulgarian libraries.

The budget allocated for the Bulgarian operation amounts to about $15 million, while the scheme itself will be implemented in several different phases.

Additionally, Microsoft has earmarked a donation to Bulgarian libraries amounting to about $6 million.

The B&MGF is the largest "transparency private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates, driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family", it says on the foundation's website.

The primary objectives of the organisation are to improve health care and reduce extreme poverty, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

To maintain its status as a charitable foundation, it must donate at least five per cent of its assets each year, or amounting to about $1.5 billion.

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