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[Garo]

The National Library of Armenia


The National Library of Armenia is located in the center of Yerevan, on Terian Street, surrounded by institutions of higher learning. The oldest structure of the Library complex is the Tamanian Wing, built in 1939 according to the design of academician Alexander Tamanian, in the best traditions of Armenian and European architecture. Housed here are the General Reading Room, the Departments of Fine Arts, Early Imprints, Rare and Archival Literature, the Bindery, and the Printing Press.
Large and small galleries on the first floor of the Tamanian Wing offer display space for special exhibits. Here is also located the Library’s 200-seat conference room.
The Library’s main public entrance is near the Students’Park, from which one enters the Administration Wing.

Here are housed the Library’s reading rooms, the readers’ and authority catalogs, and the administrative offices.
The Book Storage Wing was built in the 1980’s to house 9 million volumes. Construction was completed without providing the means necessary for preservation and service. Because of financial and technical circumstances, the installation of air conditioning, humidity and temperature control, fire suppression, book transportation systems and elevators was not accomplished and the building has remained empty. In coming years, the floor-by-floor relocation of library materials will be gradually implemented. When renovated, the bridge between the Administration and Book Storage Wings will serve as the Reading Rooms Wing.


more info...

[Yervant1]

News.am, Armenia

May 14 2020

 

 

National Library of Armenia issues statement

22:08, 14.05.2020

                  

 

 

The National Library of Armenia has issued the following statement:

“During the state of emergency declared in Armenia, the NLA only worked online, and the Internet servers were regulated remotely. On May 10, to clarify the reasons for disruption of Internet connection and lack of online access to the electronic databases of the National Library of Armenia (NLA), employees of the NLA found certain electronic devices turned to ashes along with one of the police officers in charge of building maintenance. Later, an employee of the Ministry of Emergency Situations providing service in the building also arrived. The administration of the NLA immediately applied to the Minister of Emergency Situations to clarify the nature and circumstances of the incident, but relevant specialists still haven’t arrived. Since the police officers in charge of building maintenance and a security officer of the NLA stated that there had been a power outage, the administration also applied to the director of the Electric Networks of Armenia with the request for information, but there is still no answer.

As far as the servers and the materials kept in those servers are concerned, the materials digitized and archived throughout the years are also saved on carriers. Therefore, in this sense, the archived materials aren’t lost, and the technical condition of the servers is reassuring, based on the assessment of the Library’s specialist, but only after an investigation into the incident and provision of a record on the investigation will it be possible to give a complete evaluation. Currently, the NLA is taking actions to transfer all the digitized materials to a cloud system and make them available for readers again,” the statement reads.

Earlier, former director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia Hayk Demoyan had posted on his Facebook page that source materials devoted to the Armenian Genocide had turned to ashes in a matter of hours.

 

https://news.am/eng/news/578716.html

[Yervant1]

JAM News

May 15 2020

 

 

Fire at National Library of Armenia destroys digital document servers

 

15.05.2020

 

A fire took place in the National Library of Armenia, damaging servers on which digital versions of books and periodicals in Armenian were stored.

Because of the coronavirus crisis in Armenia, library staff are working online, in remote mode. When it was noted the site was not available, the library staff, along with the police guarding the building, came in to check on the building and found the burned-out servers.

The digital information of the National Library had been put together over the course of almost 20 years. Many researchers and simply readers used it its open access source documents both in Armenia itself and abroad.

The cause of the fire has not yet been clarified. It is also not clear whether it will be possible to recover information stored on the destroyed servers. However, according to the acting director Hrach Saribekyan, the evaluation of their appearance by the library specialist is encouraging:

“A full assessment can be given only after verification, which will become possible after the Ministry of Emergencies will consider the case.”

However, according to Saribekyan, all the digitized and archived material that was on the server devices is stored on separate media, that is, in any case, it is not lost. And the library is already working to make online materials again available to readers.

 

https://jam-news.net...l-fire-library/