YEREVAN (National Library of Armenia Facebook page)– The National Library of Armenia has reported that on May 10 certain servers used to host digitized newspaper and other materials were found damaged by smoke. A fire may have occurred on May 8 or 9.
Under the emergency coronavirus situation, the library was physically closed and only accessible online. When it was discovered that the site was no longer accessible online, library staff accompanied by one of the policemen assuring the security of the building went to the building and discovered the situation. Later a representative of the Ministry of Emergency Affairs arrived, and experts were requested from the ministry to investigate further.
The electric power had been subject to fluctuations and interruptions, so the library administration also contacted the Electric Networks of Armenia company to obtain information about this. No answer had yet been received by May 14.
Fortunately, the server contents have also been stored in separate media over the years and so are not lost. Furthermore, it is possible that the servers themselves may be repairable. The originals of the digitized materials remain preserved.
Meanwhile, the library is working to transfer all digitized materials to the cloud so that they may be accessible again to the public.
