On September 29-30, 2022 the National Library of Armenia hosted the international conference “Heritage Preservation for a Sustainable Future” dedicated to the 510th anniversary of Armenian printing.
The opening session began with a performance from the “Arar” choir (founder, artistic director and conductor: Gor Melkumyan). His Highness the Catholicos of All Armenians, Garegin the Second, gave a patriarchal blessing to the participants. Then, RA Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Ara Khzmalyan gave a welcoming speech. Library Director Anna Chulyan then officially opened the conference, highlighting the value and role of libraries in the preservation of cultural heritage and expressing her gratitude to Armenian librarians of the past and present.
More than 160 representatives from 17 countries participated in the conference. Over the two-day event, talks and presentations addressed the issues of library automation and management systems, digitization, innovative technologies, implementation of international standards and exchange of international best practices. Brewster Kahle, the Founder of the Internet Archive, gave a speech via Zoom at the opening plenary session. Barbara Lison, President of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), also spoke at the opening session of the conference, highlighting the most important trends and challenges of the library profession.
The conference was organized around 8 main tracks: national heritage preservation, content management, professional development, bibliography, copyright and other legal matters, library services, library management, and reading promotion.
About three dozen Armenian libraries and organizations, and dozens of national and university libraries from around the world participated in the conference, as well as Minerva program representatives from the Erasmus+ capacity development in the field of higher education program. On the first day of the conference, the National Library of Armenia signed memorandums of understanding and cooperation with the Russian State Library, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature named after M. Rudomino, as well as with the national libraries of Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The aim of the conference was to increase ties between Armenia and the global library field, introduce new topics and highlight the experiences of international librarians, promote the 510th anniversary of Armenian printing, and strengthen mutual relations between the libraries of the CIS countries.