The University of Bucharest, as the promoter of the project, is one of the most important institutions of higher education in Romania. In its 150 years of existence, it has consolidated its prestige at a national and international level. For a century and a half, the academic community of the University of Bucharest has worked in order to build a modern, strong, flexible and dynamic institution meant to provide higher education of the highest quality, to reach the highest international standards of scientific research and to contribute to the modernization and strengthening of the democratic processes in Romanian society.
The University of Bucharest has accomplished its mission to form successive generations of young people who respect truth and scientific knowledge and adhere to the national and universal human values which contribute to the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge as well as to the development of Romanian society.
The University of Bucharest is considered the most important educational, research and cultural institution in Romania, both at home and abroad. Due to the effort of many generations of students and professors, our University is a yardstick of excellence for the entire Romanian society, being the first Romanian academic institution to be ranked in the top 600 universities worldwide. The survey that was carried out in 2007 by the famous publication "The Times Higher Education Supplement" ranked our academic institution in the top 500 universities in the world, the University of Bucharest being the only university in the country that was mentioned in this prestigious international ranking.
"R.A.R. – Reclaiming English Studies in Romania", a project initiated by the University of Bucharest in partnership with the Romanian Academy Library, consists in protecting, capitalizing and promoting the written cultural heritage of English Studies in Romania by identifying a documentary segment of over 250 books and digitising them. The items to be digitised will promote the British culture and civilization among those interested by creating a database and a website that will facilitate the access to these resources. This project plans to reduce the risk of cultural identity loss by keeping this written heritage in digital format.
English Studies in Romania is an area that has remained largely unexplored and untapped although it has a history of approximately 200-years. Language and literature studies, textbooks for teaching English, translations and dictionaries – a valuable written heritage – dating from 1750-1940 may be found in the corpus of old books present in various ancient libraries in the country, but they have not been reclaimed and they are almost inaccessible to the ordinary reader.
The most important purpose of digitisation is to increase the access to information and to improve the preservation of documents, as it is the most powerful way of widely spreading the information. Both the general and the specialised public – teachers, students, pupils, researchers, etc. – will be able to download and will have free mobile access to the 250 volumes of the English Studies field in the digital environment. This will increase the number of digitised resources, the possibility of studying the English language and literature, and will show us new pathways needed for teaching the English language and culture in Romania. In addition, these digitised heritage items will be a new step in the development of new research directions. The project aims to enrich the presence of Romania in the cultural portal, Europeana.
The PA16-RO12-SGS-3/16.03.2015 RAR project –Reclaiming English Studies in Romania – is undertaken in partnership with the Romanian Academy Library and financed through the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014, through "The Conservation and Revitalisation of the Cultural and Natural Heritage" programme.