ARMENIAN FROM BEIRUT, PIERRE GUYUMCHIAN, GRANTS DIGITALIZATION DEVICE
TO MATENADARAN FOR TWO MONTHS
YEREVAN, JUNE 29, NOYAN TAPAN. Pierre Guyumchian, an Armenian engineer
from Beirut, granted a digitalization device Atiz BookDrive Diy to
Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran for two months. An agreement "On Free of
Charge Use of Property" was signed on June 26 between Arshak Banuchian,
the Acting Director of Matenadaran, and P. Guyumchian.
In P. Guyumchian’s words, it occurred to him to give that device to
Matenadaran after the stir over the agreement signed between the U.S.
Minnesota Hill Museum-Library of Manuscrips and Matanadaran.
P. Guyumchian stated that Matenadaran’s manuscripts should be
digitalized without the participation of foreigners, only Armenian
specialists should be engaged in it. "There are few centers like
Matenadaran in the world, and we should not give out its wealth to
foreigners," he said. P. Guyumchian said that before coming to Armenia
he visited Mayravank in Antelias and was upset to find out that part of
the books kept there had been already digitalized by the Hill
Museum-Library. As a result, if someone wishes to use that books, he
should receive the Hill Library’s consent. At the same time, P.
Guyumchian said that the device given by him is more suitable and
operates more smoothly than the one offered by the Hill Library.
A. Banuchian said that they plan to find out by means of the device
given by P. Guyumchian how quickly manuscripts’ digitalization is done,
how much that device is useful for that purpose, whether it can be
perfected, and how many devices of the kind are necessary for
digitalization of all manuscripts of Matenadaran.
The RA Ministry of Education and Science charged Matenadaran to submit
a manuscripts digitalization program to the RA government within three
months. In A. Banuchian’s words, this program should also include
manuscripts’ restoration, photography, creating databases, as well as
publication of unpublished originals.
It was mentioned that a proposal of a method of Matenadaran
manuscripts’ digitalization has been received from Karl Franz
University of the city of Graz, Austria.