http://www.bawue.de/~wmwerner/english/romania.html (Internet on a CD, 07/1998)On Sunday 26th of October 1997, late at night, CIMEC - The Information Centre for Culture and Heritage, a public institution under the Ministry of Culture maintaining the national databases for the Romanian cultural heritage was robbed. The thieves entered by cutting the lock of an escape iron door and by breaking the exterior window (CIMEC is situated at the ground floor of the Free Press House).
Eight Pentium personal computers - more than a third of the computers of the institution - the newest and most powerful, the Internet server of CIMEC included, together with a telefax Minolta, other electronic equipment - were stolen from six rooms. The local and exterior data networks were savagely destroyed and the cables dismantled. The paper archive and the furniture were vandalised. 50 CD-ROMs with original programmes were taken away. The restoration of what remained from the computer network, the recovering of the destroyed applications and programmes, the Web pages and databases will take many weeks of hard work. The damage is the equivalent of the budget of CIMEC for three months. It is a severe lost for an institution with very modest financial resources, the more that the whole activity of CIMEC relies on computers. By the stolen of the Internet server, the main electronic resource for the Romanian cultural heritage (http://cimec.sfos.ro), visited by 1,500 persons monthly, is disconnected for an uncertain period. The Police is investigating the case.
Without financial help, CIMEC will not be able to recover soon. The electronic archive of the Romanian cultural heritage is in danger. We need the support of all cultural institutions and companies.
(received by eMail, 30 Oct. 1997)