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The communist period appears, in the context of our national history, as a real fracture. The economic disaster was less severe than the mutilation of consciences by a rigid doctrine, full of reductionist philosophical errors, brutally imposed by a government that institutionalized the lie. However, this does not mean that researching the history of leftist ideas in the Romanian space is not of interest, on the contrary, many traumatic aspects of socialist society and the mechanisms of resistance that have emerged explain the recent evolution. An interesting figure in the context of leftist ideas in Romania, forgotten today, was the socialist and anarchist Panait Muşoiu (1864-1944). Largely self-taught, he set as his goal in life the emancipation of Romanian society, which is why he published our first translation of the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and founded “The Idea Jorunal” (1889). In the Manuscript Cabinet from the National Library of Romania there is a collection of letters whose recipient is Panait Muşoiu. The documents are interesting as testimonies about the concerns of an extreme left activist in the period before 1945 in Romania. What transpires from this correspondence is the diligence, the eagerness of Muşoiu, because for the authentic socialists, the political beliefs were a true religion. In fact, Marxism could be framed in a kind of mysticism of political power. The process of recovering the past and healing the social and moral wounds caused by the communist regime goes through the realization that, originally, the intentions of the promoters of radical social change were honorable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2016, the National Library of Romania has carried out a series of events within the „Centenary 2018" national project, one of them being the series of exhibitions Romania in the First World War - 1916-1918 organized between 2016-2019. All this historical journey has been extensively documented, under its various aspects, in the pages of the album Romania in the First World War on the Way to the Great Union - 1916-1918, published with the support of the Centenary Department within the Ministry of Culture and National Identity. The volume aims to reach the deepest levels of the Romanian collective consciousness from everywhere, to elucidate and present the real and objective key steps in establishing the Romanian state, of the national evolution from the most diverse and important territories inhabited by Romanians. The album contains images that cover a wide range of documents: archive, photos, press, maps, printed music with the subject of Romania's participation in the First World War and the achievement of Greater Romania. All their originals are part of the national patrimony held by the Special Collections of the National Library of Romania and selected from the collections of the Cabinet of the Historical Archive, the Cabinet of Photography, the Cabinet of Old Romanian Periodicals, the Cabinet of Music and the Cabinet of Cartography. Also, the album contains extremely valuable social and political information, appeared in articles from the press of the time, supplemented at times with small fragments selected from reliable sources, memories, and analyzes, indicated in the bibliography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of Manuscriptorim project, coordinated by the National Library of the Czech Republic, the National Library of Romania has joined in 2008 and started the program to digitize the most valuable collections of old books and manuscripts. As a result a large part of the collection of rare and old romanian books, the entire collection of incunabulae and more then 200 rare and old foreign books from the special collections department în Bucharest and 283 rare and old manuscripts from Batthyaneum branch of National Library from Alba Iulia were made accesible on the Manuscriptorium project site and on the National Digital Library on the National Library site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rarity and increasing value of early printings makes necessary the recording and indexing of all copies and their processing from the point of view of their bookbindings. The protection of original copies and their restoration is the only way to preserve these books which are invaluable for the recording of cultural history. This paper presents the bindings of works by Pelbartus de Themeswar and Osualdus de Lasko in the collections of the University Library, Cluj [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any public library finds its mission in the very core of its community as an information centre that makes any kind of knowledge and information available to its users. "Octavian Goga" Public County Library Cluj shows a constant attention for the development of its special collections in order to point out the local heritage and to reflect the cultural dynamics of Cluj County. The assets of the Library' Special Collection Department were also enriched by the Contemporary Bibliophily Collections. Added recently, "Ion Brad" Document Series contains documents with an undeniable value. These documents, mostly correspondence, triggered some authentic evocations of the contemporary literary world, published as memoir books at the Scientific Publishing House in Cluj. All correspondence, especially from Cluj, has been capitalized ever since 2009 by editing bibliographic materials which have been posted also on the Memory and Local Knowledge portal, in order to capitalize the documentary and imagistic heritage of the library's collections. The article includes a reminder of the Ion Brad's personality that can also be a starting point for studying the relations between library and local community as it has been observed by its leading representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text draws attention on 144 philosophical manuscripts on various subjects from the 17th-20th centuries, preserved in the Special Collections Department of Lucian Blaga Central University Library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the series of exhibitions organised by the Special Collections Department of the "Lucian Blaga" Central University Library in Cluj, Romania entitled "Seasons of Books." The first exhibition was held on December 3, 1998 and centered on winter books. Presented in the exhibition were manuscripts, old and rare books, engravings and postcards. The exhibit highlights the multicultural and multireligious nature of the collections held in the department.