Book Palace faces terrible plight in World Book Capital (photos)

While Armenia is preparing to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of printing art, with Yerevan being declared the 2012 World Book Capital, more than 1 million print materials in the National Book Palace are facing the threat of destruction.

With every snowmelt and rain, buckets are placed in every corner of the Palace to protect the archive from leaking liquid.

The library houses all the print materials and extracts from books, newspapers and magazines published since 1920.

Speaking to Tert.am, Hovhannes Bekmezyan, the director of the Palace, said the building has not been renovated since 1970, despite his numerous warning to different government bodies.

“It is already 6-7 years that the fundamental repairs was included in the Armenian National Book Palace’s medium-term development program, but there has been no response so far. I have several times sent my concerns to the Ministry of Culture, wrote letters and asked the minister personally to send a commission, but still no progress, ” he said. “I expected this year’s budget to cover the expenses of the archive repairs but those expenses were unfortunately approved, with no single mention of the issue.”

Bekmezyan does not think such attitude could be caused by the Ministry’s decreased attention to the collection’s value.

“This cannot be an invaluable collection; this is an institution whose role is similar to that of Matenadaran (repository of ancient manuscripts). While Matenadaran is home to manuscrcipts, the Book Palace collects and keeps printed books,” he added.