site.btaSofia University Rector, Austrian Ambassador Sign Agreement Regulating Austrian Library Dr. Wolfgang Kraus' Status

Sofia University Rector Prof. Georgi Valchev and the Austrian Ambassador to Bulgaria Andrea Ikic-Bohm signed a new agreement regulating the status of the Austrian Library Dr. Wolfgang Kraus, the University’s press office announced on Tuesday.

Established in 1991, the Austrian Library is an educational and cultural center for exchange between Austrian and Bulgarian literature and culture. Under the new agreement, the library, now functioning as one of the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology libraries, becomes a branch of the Sofia University Library.

Thanks to the new agreement, the library now has a permanent librarian and has been open full-time to students, faculty, and the general public since January 2025. It is now part of the new unit, the Library of Germanic and Scandinavian Studies, which will oversee the Austrian Library, the German Library, and the Nordica Library.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Austrian Embassy, the Director of the University Library, Assoc. Prof. Bilyana Yavrukova, and Prof. Dr. Maria Endreva, Head of the Department of Germanic and Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology.

Valchev and Ikic-Bohm expressed their satisfaction with the successful cooperation between the two countries over the years and emphasized that the signed agreement will make this collaboration even more fruitful.

Ambassador Andrea Ikic-Bohm noted that every library is more than the number of books it holds - it is a meeting place and a space for ideas exchange, contributing to mutual understanding.