Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Tamar Melkonian
Staff Writer
Photo: ASP Archive
Did you know that the Armenian Studies Program has one of the largest and most extensive collections of books, magazines, and other materials on Armenian subjects in the United States? Throughout the years the Program has received generous donations of books from community members, authors, and Armenian institutions worldwide. However, until recently the works were inaccessible because they had not been completely cataloged.
The Program is now in the process of creating a centralized online digital catalog that will make its collection available to search. The online catalog makes the Armenian Studies Program’s resources accessible to scholars and to the public. Malina Zakian La Porta, under the supervision of Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, has led the effort to have books, memoirs, newspapers, DVDs, and VHS tapes cataloged, making the collection searchable by author, title, subject, and keyword.
The catalog is now available through a link on the Armenian Studies Program website, http://www.fresnostate.edu/artshum/armenianstudies/ or by going directly to the Library World website http://opac.libraryworld.com/opac/home.
Fascinating print and visual/audiovisual collections have come to light during the process of cataloging. La Porta was especially fascinated with a couple of rare finds. “The Arpiar Markarian Collection offers a wonderful window onto the varied tastes and interests of a bibliophile, ranging from 19th c. Armenian translations of French classics, to Armenian poetry published in Buenos Aires, to an almanac produced in New York in 1925, detailing Armenian businesses across the country. The collection also contains a pristine copy of Navasart, an illustrated literary journal edited by Daniel Varoujan and Hagop Siruni in Constantinople in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Only a handful of libraries in the world own this publication,” stated La Porta. She was very excited to find these one-of-a-kind resources, now available for the public to utilize.
In addition to these uncommon finds, other large individual collections are being cataloged, among these a broad assortment of plays, memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies by or on William Saroyan. This collection consists of hundreds of such books, all generously donated by Col. Carl Mahakian.
For the first phase of the plan, the Armenian Studies Program has prioritized cataloging ethnographic and compatriotic works about villages and communities in historic Armenia. Many of these accounts, written shortly after the Genocide, are difficult to come by and are of great interest to the local Fresno Armenian community, as well as a larger scholarly community. Among these works are studies on Chomaklou, Harput, and a collection of works and manuscripts on Zeitun, donated by Tilda and Khoren (Davidson) Davidian.
The Armenian Studies Program also has a complete DVD collection of films from the Armenian Film Foundation, donated by the late Dr. J. Michael Hagopian.
The cataloging of the Program collection also reveals the significant support it has received from the community over the years. The collection will be available soon for use in the Armenian Studies Program office.
The Program is appreciative of all those who have donated and contributed to the extensive collection. Because of those donations and the new cataloging project, the Armenian Studies Program is giving back to a community that has long supported it.