Donabedian, D., Carey, J., & Balayan, A. (2020). Collection Development at Two Armenian University Libraries: A Conversation with Librarians and Faculty. LIBER Quarterly, 30(1).

 

Donabedian, Carey and Balayan address the restrictions that two academic libraries faced in Armenian. The universities were American University of Armenia in Yerevan, Armenia and Yerevan State University.  Faculty at both universities talked about having to get material online and at times illegally from Russian websites because the libraries were not filling their request for items.  Librarians talked about having e-resources that are never used or that only 100 students used the rare book collection.

The American University librarians addressed the fact that they are not just an academic library, but they also function as a de facto public library,  “Legally we are not a public library, but we act like a public library.” (Donabedian, Carey and Balayan, pg 11, 2020)  Because of difficulties getting books, AUA orders books from Amazon.

The faculty discussed their view that they do not have a say in what is ordered, even though some departments like the History Department send a list of books over to the library requesting new material be added.   The breakdown in communication between the librarians and faculty makes it difficult for the library’s collection to be useful to its patrons.