The second panel of the Archiving Memory project was held by the participation of Dr. Tigran Zargarian, Director of the National Library of Armenia from Yerevan and Dr. Antranik Dakessian, Director of Armenian Diaspora Research Center at the Haigazian University from Beirut. The two distinct institutions that were in Istanbul for the first time, discussed whether it is possible to overcome geographical distances through digital connections.

Dr. Zargarian’s talk, Connecting the Diasporas via Digital Libraries: Towards Challenges of the 21st Century, maintained that amongst the top priorities of The National Library is the long term preservation of Armenian printed materials next to the acquisition of new collections. Dr. Zargarian elaborated that the Library contains 2,7 million digitized pages of periodicals and 9,100 digitized books, which are freely accessible through its website.

Dr. Antranik Dakessian’s talk, The Experience of the Armenian Diaspora Research Center at the Haigazian University, discussed the conferences organised on the Armenian communities in the Middle Eastern countries and how these conferences produced 110 research papers so far. Dr. Dakessian also talked about the oral history materials that were collected in the 1970’s and were recently digitised, as well on a recent oral history project that involved the university students and students from the high schools in Lebanon, who were prompted to write the stories of their families.

Below is the video of the panel that took place in Havak Hall on January 12th, 2018.