Fundamental Scientific Library of the NAS

Closure of the NATO NIG project. In 2007 Fundamental Scientific Library was awarded with the NATO Networking Infrastructure Grant PDD(CP)(EAP.NIG 983118) ‘Harmonization of the Academy of Sciences Network Infrastructure for Connecting to GÉANT’. The project was jointly coordinated by Alan Hopkinson, of Middlesex University, from NATO and Tigran Zargaryan from the Armenian side.   
According to the grant it was proposed to upgrade telecommunication backbone between ASNET 3 main nodes to 10 GB/sec, to modernize NAS RA institutions libraries with computers, scanners, and networking equipment, and to connect these libraries to ASNET. Training component for the librarians also was included in the grant.
In September 2009 NATO project co director Alan Hopkinson visited Yerevan for analyzing project outcomes and achievements. During the meetings and discussions with vice president of NAS RA academician Yuri Shoukuryan, director of the Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems Dr. Vladimir Sahakyan, director of the Fundamental Scientific Library Dr. Tigran Zargaryan, and network administrators of ASNET it was stated that main achievements of the project are.

1.  Development of NAS RA institution libraries online public access catalogue. The catalogue is accessible from the FSL web site, at http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/node/5 by activating the link ‘Union catalogue of NAS RA Institutions’.  A dedicated server, obtained from NATO NIG project, is allocated for these purposes. Cataloguing in institutions is being done using the computers and networking devices received by the institutions from the NATO NIG grant. Partner country co director Tigran Zargaryan has localized the Evergreen integrated library automation system into Armenian and Russian, which is a considerable benefit for the librarians during their daily work.
2. Publication of the electronic version of the journal ‘Proceedings of NAS RA Mechanics’. This work is a result of close cooperation of librarians and scholars. This journal is accessible from the FSL web site at http://www.flib.sci.am/eng/node/5, under the link ‘Proceedings of NAS RA: Mechanics’. One academic from the Institute of Mechanics has passed training session on how to work with ePrints system. They are compiling issues of this journal for the year 2009 on to the ePrints system, which is hosted and managed by the FSL staff. Librarians are scanning old issues of this journal and adding images of the articles (with relevant bibliographic descriptions) to the ePrints repository. Google Scholar is indexing this repository. We are planning to start similar activities with other NAS journals.
3. 3. In the framework of the ‘Black Sea Interconnection’ project funded by EU FP7 programme, ASNET is being connected to Geant computing capacities. The main objectives of BSI are listed below.
   Development of well harmonised network infrastructure with 10GB/sec data transfer speed between network nodes, presence of trained librarians and computerised libraries are achieving the above mentioned objectives for NAS.
    Distinguished achievements are building good prerequisites for starting (i) massive digitisation activities in the NAS institutions, (ii) implementing distance learning models for the librarians and academics, and as a result (iii) developing networked scholarly content.