This is a Web version of an article which appeared
in the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies
(JSAS) No 6, copyright 1995 by the Society for
Armenian Studies. Although this text file does not
maintain the "look" of the Journal, the full
content of the text, bibliography and end notes
are present.

ARMENIANS IN CYBERSPACE: CD-ROMS vs. ON-LINE

Let us begin by defining Cyberspace. The 
"Computer Jargon Dictionary" carries a "classic"
definition of the word. Cyberspace:
/si:'ber-spays/ n. 1. Notional
'information-space'; occasionally, 2. the
metaphoric location of information.1

What does this have to do with Armenian Studies,
or Humanities in general, and how can these fields
benefit from the tools that the Computer Age has
provided thus far?

The Information Age tools include: the personal
computer (PC), databases, desktop publishing
(DTP), Compact Disk-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM), and
the Internet.

Let's take each of these "discoveries" and see
what benefits they have provided to scholars.

1. Personal computers and word processing software
have given multi-lingual individuals the ability
to prepare lecture notes, conferences papers and
articles without the use or ownership of several
typewriters.

2. Database management softwares have enabled
librarians to prepare, for example card catalogs
in a non-linear way, and faster than it would have
taken their predecessors; electronic catalogs
allow us to view the same information in many ways
by sorting on any of the fields, such as author,
subject; or, search any word in a titleÉ, giving
us far greater flexibility.

3. Desk-top publishing has cut down the cost of
publishing multi-lingual journals, eliminating the
monopoly of specialized publishing houses. DTP
basically allows scholars and editors more
flexibility and removes the middle-man, the
typographer. The downside of this is, of course,
the need to spend more time learning the advanced
aspects of a software. There are many foreign
language versions of these applications, with
appropriate dictionaries, spell-checkers and
hyphenation rules.

So far all these tools have allowed us to
"emulate" what we had before computers. 4. CD-ROMs
have enabled scholars to publish large volumes in
a small format. Today, books and reference
material published electronically on CD-ROM don't
cost more than traditional publishing. CDs are
also lighter and amount to less shipping charges.
For the libraries, it means less crowding on
bookshelves.

What are the added benefits of publishing
electronically on a CD-ROM? Jacques Leslie, in a
recent article brings the example of the Bryn Mawr
Classical Review. When the journal started
publishing in both print and electronic, it's the
electronic version that took off. "Circulation for
it and its sister publication, the Bryn Mawr
Medieval Review, stands at 1,750 and rising, while
circulation for the print version has settled at
around 500", writes Leslie.2 Another benefit to
publishing in this format - reprints are much
easier to prepare.

There are now 8,000 CD-ROM titles available, and
consumers have spent $136 million on CD-ROM titles
in the first quarter of 1994, more than four times
the spending a year earlier.3

Some 450 publications have seen the
lightÉelectronically. This is a mere drop in the
bucket compared to the 30 to 45 thousand academic
journals that universities and research
institutions must subscribe to in order to remain
on top, especially in the scientific fields. Sales
from these journals brings in US $1.5 to 2 billion
a year. Universities are cutting back because some
subscriptions cost U.S. $10,000 a year or higher.
4 Traditional publishing houses are getting
nervous. Several reference materials such as
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, the OED and
the Encyclopedia Brittanica are now available on
CD-ROM, on Macintosh, DOS and UNIX platforms. As I
mentioned above, they eliminate one very important
aspect, shipping then storage of heavy volumes.
Can any library or budget officer ignore this?

5. Internet, and, commercial on-line services are
enabling scholars to transfer information faster
than any other means of communication. This means
sending and receiving text, pictures, sound, in
the shortest possible time - usually seconds. ( I
have discussed elsewhere the pros and cons of the
different electronic media available in the market
today.)

But is Cyberspace only for e-mail communication,
or is it more?

In the next portion I will give some examples of
what is already out there, and suggest ways in
which technology can better serve the Humanities,
including Armenian Studies.

I. Accessing major libraries' indexes and their
contents: ¥ The Library of Congress has an on-line
catalog of 20 million entries. The British Library
has 15 million.5 The forefather of these projects
is the OCLC (itself based on LOC's MARC records)
which now links 14,000 libraries in 46 countries
sharing a database of 26 million entries; OCLC
also runs an interlibrary loan. Although tracking
and finding an entry on this system is fast,
retrieving a book via interlibrary loan is not.
That is perhaps why libraries such as LOC have
plans to make thousands of documents available
on-line. This will allow the whole document to be
seen on a monitor. We'll talk more about this
later.

What's available at LOC? In an article printed in
Spring '93, Dr. Levon Avdoyan reports that "At
present there are approximately 5,000
Armenian-language volumes, monographs and series
[at Library of Congress]. "This does not include",
he adds, "items in the general collection - in
English and other languages - which deal directly
and indirectly with Armenia and the Armenians".
Items include microfilmed collections from the St.
Catherine Monastery in the Sinai. Avdoyan writes
about budget cuts, and how through inter-library
loan, we can find material that our local library
can't provide.6

Perhaps the Internet is the greatest Inter-library
book loan provider of all. And, "Arm-chair"
research will no longer be a pejorative term.


Here's an example of Armenian material actually
available on-line, and run on a small budget: ¥
The Saint Andrew Information Network in Cupertino,
California has file archives containing electronic
back issues of several publications, a large
repository of historical and general references,
images and news archives, and software. In 1993,
SAIN became a registered domain on the Internet.
It was the first BBS (electronic Bulletin Board
Service) dedicated to Armenian issues and it is
the first and only public access Armenian domain
on the "superhighway." Access to the system is
free, and paid for by contributions. Files
pertinent to the Armenian Church and community are
available, e.g. Armenian Church theology, Armenian
History, Activism and Karabagh.7

A more recent example: ¥ Various papers and images
were made available on World Wide Web by the
Armenian Research Center, in Michigan. "World Wide
Web [W3] allows people to view formatted text and
images at remote sites all around the world
on-screen and to download the text and images to
their own computers." Currently, the Armenian
Research Center focuses on these areas: 1) the
Armenian Research Center and its Director, Dr.
Dennis R. Papazian; 2) Armenia, Karabagh and the
Armenian Genocide; 3) selected writings of Dr.
Papazian; 4) a database, to be activated shortly;
5) information on publications sponsored by the
Center or sold there; 6) information on the
Society for Armenian Studies; 7) images of
Armenian flags and seals; and 8) links to other
web sites with historical material on the
Armenians and their neighbors.8


II. Future projects: ¥ According to a recent New
York Times article, the Library of Congress will
scan and convert to digital "the most important
materials in its collection and the collections of
all public and research libraries in the country".
It will be a "virtual" library containing
digitized images of books, drawing, photographs
and manuscripts; the material will maintain the
"look" of the original, and can be transmitted via
electronic networks to computers.9

This opens up a whole new area for discussion:
what is the criteria of book selection? Books that
are read today, which are in main circulation?
Books that need to be "preserved"?

I believe one important criteria should be book
preservation. Several articles have mentioned the
deterioration and the mutilation of rare books and
those simply carrying beautiful illustrations.
That is why some stacks at major libraries are
closed to the public. If digitized, these books
will not deteriorate because of 'frequent
viewing'. Of course there are other reasons which
make books brittle, for example acidic paper - so
even non-circulating material could be
deteriorating.10 Many of the books published in
the 19th-early 20th century by the Venice
Mkhitarist press, and, in the Soviet Union, have
become brittle. One of the ways libraries can
preserve their holdings is digital imaging.
Columbia University is participating in a one-year
test to evaluate network access to Cornell
University Library's growing digital library of
brittle books. Columbia will also participate in
the Digital Image Access project, which will study
the best way to catalog and retrieve digital
images.11

Brittle books, once scanned, can be available for
years either on-line or published in CD-ROM
format, and many can benefit from such projects.
After all what is the purpose of libraries? Are
they to become impregnable "fortresses of
knowledge"? Quite the contrary they need to be an
"ocean of information".12

Having this technology available at one's
fingertips can also mean that users can look up
information after hours; they can download the
information, or request a facsimile to be viewed
on screen or sent later by a librarian or
archiver. If a library currently carries several
copies of a popular book, they will quickly loose
that habit and learn to save space.

¥ The Biblioth�que Nationale de France, hopes to
make some 100,000 "canonical works of the 20th
century" available electronically throughout
France and then perhaps the rest of the world.
This is one of the greatest projects since the
Biblioth�que decided to upgrade its libraries, and
open many more research centers.

¥ At Boston Spa in Yorkshire, the British Library
runs a service which finds hard-to-locate journal
articles and other documents. Last year, it sent
out more than 3 million bits of text worldwide,
mostly photocopies, but also an increasing number
of faxes. To cut down the sheer grunt work of
copying text, the British Library is experimenting
with new forms of service. Instead of receiving a
printed journal from publishers, for example, it
now receives a CD-ROM containing digitized images
of the articles from which it prints out a new
hard copy each time one is requested.13 They could
eventually send the information by e-mail.

III. The tools necessary to publish electronically
include: a) Recordable CDs,14 b) electronic
cameras,15 c) photos from the news-wires
services,16 d) Nexus news service. The last two
are especially valuable for political science and
modern history.17

Reference material - information that is not
constantly changing - is where CD-ROMs excel.
There are encyclopedias such as Encarta, which
includes 26,000 articles from Funk and Wallis'
29-volume encyclopedia.18 Others include Compton's
Interactive ($149.95) and the New Grolier's
Multimedia Encyclopedia ($395), while foreign
language examples include the Encyclopedie Bordas.
The OED's electronic version costs $895 - a
substantial saving from the 20 volume $2750 price.
$79.95 will get you the Microsoft Bookshelf with
its American Heritage Dictionary, a world atlas,
book of quotations, book of facts etc.

CD-ROM Outstanding Ideas category winners include
The Art Institute of Chicago, the Louvre and the
National Gallery (London), which are among the few
to have electronically published their collection.

CD-ROMs can also be used as study tools. There are
Language CDs - such as ones produced by Berlitz, 
CDs used in universities for interactive education
and reference, and for publishing syllabuses in
electronic form. 19

Why all this emphasis on CD-ROMs? Because CD-ROM
drives had an installed base of 8.8 million units
in 1993 alone.20.

VI. Here's more of what we would like to see/read:
¥ More Armenian material accessible via Internet.
21 At this time only the Armenian Research Center,
in Michigan, is on WWW. Why should we get on the
Internet? Because it currently provides
connectivity and information to more than 20
million people in more than 60 countries, and the
number is constantly growing. Why? Because the
Internet never sleeps.22

What are the advantage of having more access to
information? ¥ More people may be drawn to using
libraries, checking out information that is in far
away locations, but has suddenly become available
on-line.

The world's greatest libraries seem to agree by
joining the race towards digitizing, making even
more books available to the masses.

I leave you with these suggestions and thoughts:
There is a need for a commission to investigate
Armenian books that could be on-line or on CD-ROM.
What if we also had Medieval Armenian or 20th
century Armenian literature's canonical books
available in these formats? We can't afford to be
in the sidelines anymore.

Is the Information Age providing enough  tools to
today's Armenologists? What if a scholar has no
access to a computer, let alone Internet? Does
s/he teach in the Third World? Is on-line and
electronic publishing for the privileged few?

What about copyright? One of the biggest problems
in electronic publishing is that copyright
enforcement is difficult because texts are easier
to copy from electronic sources. On the other hand
will it matter. The LOC estimates that by the turn
of the century some 5 million of its holdings will
be in private domain.

Are journals printed on paper more "important",
than their electronic version? Is this bias based
on a generation gap between scholars or merely an
anti-electronic bias?


Knowledge has no boundaries, nor should accessing
information.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: "A Magazine's CD Plans" New York
Times, September 7, 1994 p. D2 "Armenian Research
Center goes on World Wide Web", July 22, 1994
"Augustine: Confessions & Enchiridion"-Internet
Wiretap etext. Scanned from an uncopyrighted 1955
Westminster Press edition, Vol. VII of the Library
of Christian Classics, printed in the United
States. Translated and edited by Albert C. Outler,
Ph.D., DD. "Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet"
(C)1993, 1994 by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation [EFF] "Brittle Books, Battered
Bindings: The Ongoing Challenge for Libraries'
Preservation" Books and Bytes, Columbia University
Libraries, May 1994. pp.1, 4. "Computer Jargon
Dictionary", Gopher service, America On-Line.
"Computer Users gain full access to Internet",
Aragil Electronic News Bulletin, July 29, 1994
"Conference charts future of CDs" MacWeek, August
22, 1994 p. 6 "The future of photography: A guide
to the visual revolution", American Photo,
May/June 1994. "Goodbye Guttenberg: Pixelating
peer review is revolutionizing scholarly journal",
Wired, October 1994, pp. 68-70. "Internet Tools
help navigate the busy virtual highway", MacWeek,
May 9, 1994 pp. 51-52 "Jean Favier est chargŽ
d'inventer la biblioth�que de l'an 2000", Paris
Match, March 3, 1994 pp. 3-5 "Library of Congress
offers to feed the data highway", New York Times,
Monday, September 12, 1994 p. B11 "Libraries
without walls - For Books without pages: What is
the role of libraries in the Information Economy"
Wired, 1.1, 1993 "Mac Connects with phone CD-ROM"
MacWeek, June 6, 1994 p.6 "Medicine turns to the
Mac for training, diagnostic tools", MacWeek,
February 7, 1994, pp. 59-60. "Multimedia: La fin
du livre?", ˆ venir, Vol. 1, No 1, July-August
1994 "The Orient Comes to Rome" - Library of
Congress files downloaded via America On-Line,
Summer, 1993. "Powerbooks aid future physicians",
MacWeek, undated. "A Report on Armenia at the
Library of Congress", Levon Avdoyan, Society for
Armenian Studies Newsletter, Volume XVII, No 1,
Spring 1993, pp. 2-4 "The Republic" by Plato -
Jowett translation, available in Project
Guttenberg etext. "Roget's Thesaurus", published
in 1911, currently in the public domain, available
in Project Guttenberg etext. SAIN, Saint Andrews,
Cupertino, California, archival files downloaded
electronically. "Searching for Stock Photos
On-Line: Macworld puts stock-photo services to the
test". Macworld, August 1994 pp. 124-127. "Surfing
the INTERNET: an Introduction", version 2.0.2 ,
December 15, 1992 c. 1992 Jean Armour Polly.
"World Wide Web", Wired 1.3, 1993 "World Wide Web
- FAQ" [Frequently Asked Questions], maintained by
Nathan Torkington, October 14, 1993 version.

ENDNOTES 1 Although it is beginning to mean more
and more a "virtual" reality space. 2"Goodbye
Gutenberg: Pixelating peer review is
revolutionizing scholarly journal" 3According to
Software Publishers Association. See "A Magazine's
CD Plans" 4"Goodbye Gutenberg: Pixelating peer
review is revolutionizing scholarly journal"
5"Libraries without walls - For Books without
pages: What is the role of libraries in the
Information Economy" 6"A Report on Armenia at the
Library of Congress", Levon Avdoyan, Society for
Armenian Studies Newsletter, Volume XVII, No 1,
Spring 1993, pp.2-4 7Various archival articles
downloaded from SAIN, Cupertino 8News Release:
"Armenian Research Center goes on World Wide Web"
9LOC hopes to also provide movies and music to the
public. "Library of Congress offers to feed the
data highway". 10Columbia University believes that
a third of its holdings are brittle books, LOC
believes 80,000 items each year become brittle,
and they and the New York Public Library are doing
something about it. 11"Brittle Books, Battered
Bindings: The Ongoing Challenge for Libraries'
Preservation" Books and Bytes, Columbia University
Libraries, May 1994. pp.1,4. 12"Libraries without
walls - For Books without pages: What is the role
of libraries in the Information Economy"
13Ibid."Libraries without walls - For Books
without pages: What is the role of libraries in
the Information Economy" 14 The price of the
recording machine is now around $2500. (as of July
'94) It's a great tool for any librarian
archiving, researcher publishing a few copies of
his/her work, aka "low volume" in the industry,
and each CD costs $39 and can contain up to 680 MB
of text, image, music and video. 15 Polaroid has a
$2,495 flatbed, which scans 2 images per minute,
connects to a Macintosh or Windows based PC.
16Services such as "Presslink", a Knight-Ridder
subsidiaries, including Times-Mirror, Reuters, AP,
UPI and Gannett provide news images for
downloading. More than 150,000  images are
available on-line in compressed JPEG format (Joint
Photographic Exports Group), each 140-250k in
size, which need about 5-10 minutes to download at
2400 baud. The service includes a sign up fee of
$50, which includes the software; monthly service
is $ 9.95 plus an hourly charge of $15.95 and a
download charge. 17"Searching the Stock Photos
On-line" 18 Plus 7 thousand photographs and
illustrations, 800 maps as well as animation,
video clips and sound, all this costing a mere
$139. 19"Powerbooks aid future physicians",
MacWeek, undated. 20These figures do not include
the hundreds of thousands of units of CD-I drives
and photo-CD players. See "Conference charts
future of CDs" 21 W3 a global hypertext system,
provides links between a phrase in one document
and related information elsewhere. W3 was
developed at Cern a European center for physics
near Geneva. Today, WWW includes a database of
poetry, documents from Project Guttenberg, library
catalogs and more."World Wide Web" 22Special
research tools include Archie, FTP, Gopher,
Mosaic/World Wide Web. "Internet Tools help
navigate the busy virtual highway"