Bucharest, Oct 15 /Agerpres/ – The library remains a treasure that will be used for a long time to come by true researchers, because not all books or documents can be digitised, Chairman of the Romanian Academy Ioan-Aurel Pop said on Tuesday.

“Many people say today that libraries no longer have a purpose and that they will become museums of books. It is possible, but I would not say – at the present moment, the moment being, for me, as a historian, let’s say, about a century – if we think about the long term, because not all books can be digitised, nor all documents, nor all sources. I’ll give you some examples. At the library there is also a collection of seals. Some are caught in documents, others are not. Seals cannot be studied online. We have the numismatic cabinet, which will open soon in a new form, in my opinion one of the most important, the entire numismatic collection in Europe. Definitely, from Munich onwards it is a unique collection. You can’t study a coin or a medal online. First of all, the researcher, with the permission of the custodians, has to touch it, see it and describe it. So, the library remains, in my opinion, a treasure that will be used for a long time to come by true researchers. Otherwise, you can look at a photo online. You see it and write something about that object,” Pop told the release of a monograph on the Romanian Academy Library between 1919 and 1947.

Nicolae Noica, general director of the Library of the Romanian Academy, introduced the audience to a series of precious documents inserted in the monograph, including letters and royal acts, maps, coins from the library’s extensive collection, old publications, and photographs.

In 2022, the first volume of a history of the Library of the Romanian Academy was released covering the years 1867 – 1885. In 2023, three other volumes followed covering the years 1886 – 1918, when the Library of the Romanian Academy flourished, thanks to the role of the great scholar Ioan Bianu. After a year, three more volumes (1919 – 1947) saw the light of day, a total of seven volumes being published, with over 500 pages each, in just two years.