Voices of Saryan, Sevak and Isahakyan to be digitized (video)
Activities of digitization of the materials have been carried out in the National Archive starting from 2010. The Director of the National Archive Amatuni Virabyan says that it doesn’t mean that they refuse documents, photos or tapes. Those materials will continue to be kept in the archive. Digitization is not an end in itself, two problems are solved in that way in the archive: first, the problem of storage of materials is solved, the photos and the tapes will remain untouched, they will be conserved. Second, information will be easily found. More than 350 million documents are kept in the National Achieve. Annually 200 thousand documents are digitized. Priority is given to the most popular documents, such as information about people. The director of the Achieve mentions that people collect information for preparing their family tree. The most popular documents also include the documents of Armenia’s first Republic and also documents connected with the Genocide. According to Virabyan, the equipment for the digitization, the price of which is more than USD 40 thousand, EUR 50 thousand, was obtained not at the expense of the state budget, but they are donations made by the individuals. This year it is planned to finish the digitization of the documentary films, and next year they will start digitization of TV movies. “We are also digitizing records, we have voices of Isahakyan, Martiros Saryan, they are voices from 1940-50ss, which don’t have images but voice is preserved. We have the record of the Writers Union Congress, where the Writers Union’s president of that times Paruyr Sevak made a speech. We will also digitize them, as they will be definitely used.”
