Armenia/ 4.2 Recent policy issues and debates  

4.2.8 New technologies and cultural policies

A major direction of Armenian cultural policy is investment of modern informational-communicative technologies and systems of electronic management in the cultural sector, as well as stimulation of digitalisation of cultural objects. The provision of electronic information equipment is still far from satisfactory in Armenia.

With the purpose of creating an electronic depository of museum objects under the patronage of the World Bank "Museum", a computer programme was developed, which is used in 7 museums. In 2000, the technical re-equipment process for libraries began. With finance from the state budget and remunerations, the automation process of collections has started in all state libraries; 7 libraries carry out an electronic service and 5 libraries are included in the joint automated net of Armenian libraries. The production of a combined electronic catalogue programme has started, with the participation of the Armenian National Chamber of books. Library collections are enriched annually with 16 000 units of information material to meet current reading demands. The effectiveness of the library-informational services needs to be improved in order to meet modern reading demands and to provide an adequate electronic service level. The Armenian Higher Technological Centre and the Information Technologies Foundation are working on cultural initiatives.

The automation of the informational-search system for archive collections was initiated in 2001. Since 2004, work on digitalisation of the photo collection and, since 2006, the cinema collection has got underway. A special fund was established to carry out this work.

To date, the digital data catalogue includes about 400 000 documents, 11 900 photos and 40 film pictures.

Chapter updated: 07-10-2008