Армянская Библиотека и Музей Америки

Шаблон:Libraryt Armenian Library & Museum of AmericaArmenian Library & Museum of America (http://www.almainc.org/) The website of ALMA, a museum and library located in Watertown, Massachusetts, and dedicated to Armenian life and culture, provides information about its collections and services. An online catalog of its holdings is now in preparation.OVERVIEW COLLECTION ORAL HISTORIES ORIENTAL RUG RESEARCH LIBRARY EVENTS HOURS

Overview For those interested in acquiring in-depth knowledge about virtually every aspect of Armenian life, ALMA's Mesrop Boyajian Library is an invaluable resource. The Library features an extensive collection of books in Armenian, English and other languages. It also offers periodicals, poster, maps, calendars, sheet music, documents, early sound recordings and more, catalogued and in open stacks for easy use by students, researchers and the general public.

Collection The Library's collection includes over 1,000 rare books. Of these, 200 titles were printed between AD1512 and AD1800, including five copies of the first printed (in Armenian) "Amsterdam Bible" of 1666 AD. The periodical holdings include over 300 different titles. The Library includes an extraordinary collection of numismatic related materials, over 1,400 hours of taped interviews in the 1970's of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, many of whom have since passed on, over 400 various examples of Armenian sheet music, over 60 antique maps and posters from the 1920's Near East Relief effort.

The Library's archives (9,000 items) focus on institutional records and personal papers of prominent individuals, as well as special collections including photographs, 1,400 oral history tapes, 1,800 sound recordings, music scores, memorabilia, pamphlets and manuscripts.

We are in the process of documenting our entire collection of books using a state-of-the-art cataloguing software. Upon completion, our entire catalog will then be made available online for students, researchers, and those wanting to know more about our books, archives, and other unique records.

Oral Histories

One of the first major projects and most important collections of ALMA are the 600 hours of Oral History tapes that we recorded from elderly survivors during the years 1975-1981. These rare interviews, recorded on cassette tape by a team of volunteers led by Bethel Charkoudian, are a unique record of the lives of 287 survivors, recorded and preserved for later generations. Although stored in a climate-controlled room, the inherent fragility of the tapes (the act of playing them can create deterioration) limited their use and access was confined to the families of the survivor or academic researchers. They became a "buried treasures".

In April 2005 Bianca Bagatourian and Alfred Demirjian of the Cambridge-based TechFusion, Inc., attended ALMA's panel discussion on oral histories of genocide survivors. Becoming aware of the vulnerable state of the ALMA tapes, Bagatourian and Demirjian offered their professional help to preserve them. TechFusion Inc. specializes in data recovery and protection (converting data formats, recovering information on crashed hard-drives, storing vital data in off-site secured locations, etc), and offered to convert the old recordings digitally, to prevent deterioration and make the information more accessible. Over the summer all 600 tapes were digitized, preserving these interviews for posterity and making them available for use without destroying the recording.

Some excerpts from these rare recordings may be heard by visitors to the website of the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance (ADAA) at www.armeniandrama.org, where the recordings are now available to inspire new generations of writers and playwrights.

Oriental Rug Research Library

The Library is home to the Herbert Offen Oriental Carpet Research Library Collection, one of the most extensive collections of literature on oriental carpets in the United States. The Offen Family's generous gift includes both the books in the Herbert Offen Collection, as well as funding of acquisitions of new, recently published and antiquarian works related to the literature of rugs and carpets.

The Herbert Offen collection of over 2,500 volumes extends beyond the narrow focus on the types and development of Oriental rugs, and encompasses broader issues including the social implications of rug collecting, symbolism and theory, care and aesthetics, the commercial marketing and business of rugs, economic and domestic structures in carpet production, historical and contemporary use of rugs, and other textile traditions closely related to rugs. The research library includes all published works related to Armenian rugs, as well as extensive range of works on all genres or rugs of the Middle East and related artistic traditions. The collection is also home to many rare works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when oriental rug studies was starting to emerge as a distinct discipline.

For further assistance, contact Curator Gary Lind-Sinanian at 617.926.2562 ext.5.

Events No events have been scheduled for the upcoming month.

Hours

Library is open on Fridays 10am-1pm. Otherwise, researchers or students can call ahead to schedule research/study sessions.

For Directions and Museum Hours please visit the General Info Page or contact ALMA offices at (617) 926-ALMA (2562)!

ALMA has finished cataologuing the entire collection of books. In the near future our entire catalog will then be made available online for students, researchers, and those wanting to know more about our books, archives, and other unique records.

65 Main Street Watertown, MA 02472 (617) 926-2562