YEREVAN, DECEMBER 13, NOYAN TAPAN. The construction of Matenadaran's scientific annex is a necessity today, especially as the number of its employees has a tendency of growing. As Hrachya Tamrazian, the Director of Matenadaran, said in his interview to Noyan Tapan correspondent, all scientific departments of Matenadaran need new specialists, new departments should be also created, but the building conditions are not sufficient. In case of building a new scientific annex the scientific department will be placed there, and exhibitions will be organized in the current main building. According to H. Tamrazian, the institution has a restoration department with modern equipment, where incunabular and rare manuscripts, books and press kept not only in Matenadaran, but also in other institutions are restored. This department also needs to be "multiplied," as it takes more than two years to restore one manuscript. H. Tamrazian also said that 90 manuscripts have been already videoed by the device donated by Lebanese Armenian architect Perch Guyumjian, as a result of the digitalization work being done in Matenadaran at present. "There is no time to test the device, we at once started videoing the manuscripts," the Director said. As regards the deal with the American Hill Museum-Library of Manuscripts, H. Tamrazian excluded that Matenadaran will ever cooperate with any organization of the kind on such terms: "this is inadmissible and dangerous." "Cooperation with foreign organizations should be carried out by the principle of not giving them copies. We are ready to cooperate with other foreign organizations, including the Austrian Graz University," he emphasized. The Director said that the Austrians have already worked with such devices, have experience and tested devices, which have passed expertise. They will give the devices without preconditions. "And for them, it is beneficial to cooperate with such a large museum of manuscripts as Matenadaran." According to H. Tamrazian, the videoing work of manuscripts is the first stage of the digitalization program, that stage is being fulfilled through donations. The funds for the next stage will be allocated by the government, for manuscripts subject to restoration, which need to be restored and rehabilitated before videoing.

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