ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS NETWORK a view from the libraries

1
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Tigran Zargaryan
• Director,
• Fundamental Scientific Library,
• National Academy of Sciences
• President of the Armenian Library Consortium

2
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Developing of Armenian Libraries Computerized
  Network. The purpose of the project was to
• 1. Assist Armenian libraries to become leading
  digital resource centres.2. Improve Armenian and
  international users' access to the information
  resources, via Union Catalogue.3. Provide
  critical information resources for the national
  educational system.4. Support the production of
  local content and share Armenia's cultural
  heritage with the world.5. Promote the use of
  international standards and best practices in
  library and information science.

3
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Existing networks
• ASNET-AM Academic Scientific Research Computer
  Network of Armenia, with from more than 50
  scientific, educational, and other organisations.
• ARENA foundation acting as a satellite Internet
  access provider under Virtual Silk Highway (SILK)
  Project.
• Industry research networks (YerPhi, Atomic Energy
  Institute, Laser Technology Institute, etc).

4
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Project consists of the following phases
• Connect participant libraries with a broadband
  data transmission network (where possible to use
  the fibre optic connections)
• Equip participant libraries with the necessary
  telecommunication hardware, servers and PCs
• Procure and install an integrated library system
• Develop Armenian libraries Union Catalogue
• Develop and deliver training programmes for
  library staff and users of the libraries
• Create various content databases.

5
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Currently seven Yerevan biggest libraries are
  connected with each other via LibNet fibre
  optic network.
• These libraries are the National Library,
  Fundamental Scientific library of the Academy of
  Sciences, Yerevan State University, State Medical
  University, and State Engineering University
  libraries, National Childrens Library, and the
  depository of the ancient manuscripts.
• 10 libraries are having access to the LibNet
  computational resources via wireless connection.

6
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• A new project of United Nations Development
  Programme and Open Society Institute Development
  of Research, Education and Civil Society (RECS)
  Network Infrastructure in Armenia.
• Till the end of the year 2007 it is planned to
  connect 31 state and private Universities with 1
  GB fibre optic connection.
• Later LibNet and RECS will act as one network.

7
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• To load the network, librarians must suggest a
  large range of services and databases to the
  remote users.
• Library management.
• Digital library services.
• Scholarly communication.
• Services and facilities for the Consortium
  libraries.

8
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Library management
• Aleph system of ExLibris is in use by the
  Consortium member 17 libraries
• More than 1.7 million bibliographic records in
  Armenian, Cyrillic, and English scripts
• http//www.armunicat.am8991/ALEPH
• Google robots are indexing this database and
  linking with Google Book Search

9
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Library management
• Armenian libraries can download bibl. records in
  MARC format from various Union Catalogs.
• The Library of Congress, the British library,
  Russian State Library are having access to
  ArmUNICAT for downloading bibl. records in MARC
  formats using Z39.50 protocol

10
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Digital Library Services
• In a framework of the eIFL Archival Journal
  Digitization Programme FSL is negotiating with
  Google Scholar, who will start full text
  digitization of NAS RA journal collections dating
  back to the 1950s.
• Another digitization initiative of FSL is
  building bibliographic abstracts repository of
  the NAS RA publications.
• http//greenstone.libnet.am

11
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Scholarly Communication
• Preparation activities are being carried out in
  FSL to introduce and establish an Open Access
  publishing network for the academic community of
  Armenia (pending grant from OSI).
• More than 2900 Open Access peer-reviewed journals
• More than 980 Open Access Repositories

12
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Services and facilities for Consortium Libraries
• Establishment of the Electronic Document Delivery
  system between the Consortia member libraries.
• Subscription to the world leading STM
  e-publications (provided by eIFL and eLCA)
• Britannica Online, Oxford Journals,
• EBSCO, Springer
• BioOne, IoP, etc

13
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Services and facilities for Consortium Libraries
• Developing Armenian Libraries Union Catalog
• Developing multilingual authority records.
• Introducing Open Source library digitization
  tools, and helping to implement them.

14
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Web2.0 and Library 2.0 new roles for the
  Libraries
• Facebook, Mashup, flickr,
• del.icio.us
• 3D Web,
• Second Life
• Wikis, RSS feeds, Blogs

15
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Universal Networking Language and the libraries
• UNL is an artificial language that relies on the
  semi-automatic translation from the initial text
  in a natural language into its pivot equivalent.
  Documents expressed in the pivot language can
  then be automatically translated into another
  natural language.

16
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• UNL and Subject Headings
• No any Subject Headings lists in Armenian
  language.
• High quality SHs in English (the Library of
  Congress SH) and in Russian (Russian National
  Library) languages.
• UNL could be a tool for preparing Armenian
  language Subject Headings.

17
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• UNL and OPAC
• Armenian Libraries Online Public Access Catalogue
  is being created using 3 scripts Armenian,
  Latin, Cyrillic.
• UNL can help to translate the bibliographic
  records into other languages.

18
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• UNL and full text databases
• UNL versions of the NAS RA journal publications
  could help researchers from other countries to
  have access to them.

19
ARMENIAN RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS NETWORKa view from the libraries

• Thank you.
• tigran_at_flib.sci.am