Culture Ministry: Armenia’s cultural legacy to be digitalized and put into single electronic database

YEREVAN, September 11. /ARKA/. On Thursday, Armenia’s government, at its regular session, approved the procedure of creation of electronic database of Armenia’s movable cultural values in the country’s territory and outside it.  

Culture Minister Hasmik Poghosyan said 44 state organizations will be obliged to provide information, and provincial, private and overseas owners of collections can do it voluntarily.   

She said that 19 museums administrated by the culture ministry already have their websites and they have completed digitalization, which however has been carried out selectively. 

“Many of cultural values kept in state, regional, communal and private collections, but not always in a proper, single and available mode, and some of them have no electronic version,” she said. “This makes comprehensive presentation and cataloguing of cultural legacy and research more complicated.”

The minister said that the new e-system will lessen illegal trafficking in these values. 

According to the draft decision, the funds necessary for development of software and database as well as other technical matters will be allocated from the 2015 government budget. 

All the procurements and technical service are planned to be ready by August 1, 2015, and digitalization of the cultural values and creation of their database will be carried out over a period between 2016 and 2020. --0--