Only 2% of Armenian literature available in digital format

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian literature totals to millions of works, and digitization is quite difficult process, director of the National Library of Armenia Tigran Zargaryan said.

“We started to digitize libraries of the National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan State University, National Library of Armenia, Scientific Medical library of Armenia in 2001. Now we have about one million digitized records,” Zargaryan told a press conference adding that the process of digitization started with creation of electronic data files.

“Electronic files made book search process easier. The data file contains book description along with the book title; its compilation is also a hard process,” library director noted.

Zargaryan said creation of e-files is followed by digitation of text materials. Digitization of each book requires each page to be scanned, processed, placed on the internet, and archived. Also, powerful servers and relevant software, as well as training of librarians is required.

Library director said digitization of Armenian libraries is supported by the OSI, Armenian Ministry of Culture, National Academy of Sciences, the government, etc. However, Zargaryan did not mention the amount of funding received for this process so far.

The National library of Armenia is the largest depository with 7 million books. According to the library director, there are books which have faded, and books with only one copy.

“Digitization first of all aims to secure our literature. We managed to digitize only 1-2% of the Armenian literature during the past 10 years,” Zargaryan said.

He also informed that each digitized book is being placed in e-libraries of the National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan State University, National Library of Armenia; the statistics shows that scientific works of the National Academy of Sciences are read also abroad, in U.S., Europe and elsewhere.