YEREVAN, Armenia — Libraries are more than just books — they offer an escape, to wander into a new world that can be filled with imagination. They offer support — a means to finishing that research essay that could (and probably should) have been finished long before the night before its due date. They also offer hope — a way to breathe in old knowledge and exhale a new future, thoughtfully built out in the mind using the wisdom and foresight of those who came before us. At the American University of Armenia (AUA), the AGBU Papazian Library grants all this and more, not only to eager students and weary scholars, but also to a community that depends on its access to enrich their minds and drive forth their ambitions.
AUA provides donors with the opportunity to establish named endowments that can support various initiatives in perpetuity. While the most desirable is often a named endowed scholarship, there is an expanding list of opportunities to direct support to, including an Endowment for the Library Collection. The payout from this endowment would be used to acquire new books, journals, and subscriptions for electronic publications.
Library Director Laurie Alvandian was interviewed by Director of Communications Edlin Hovsepian to discuss the Library’s current resources, growing needs, and how a library-specific endowment could benefit both AUA and the local community.
Please explain what types of resources the Library offers students, in addition to books.
In addition to physical books, the Library offers students a wealth of digital resources. We currently have access to around 700,000 e-resources, including e-books and e-journals, and that number is growing every year. Our website features an A-Z list of all the databases we have collected, both ones that we subscribe to and also open access materials, on a wide variety of topics. While we have the bigger interdisciplinary databases like JSTOR and EBSCO, we also have smaller, more subject-specific resources. Our goal is to assemble a list of resources that is diverse in format and subject matter. For example, a few years ago we subscribed to Kanopy, which is a streaming platform for documentaries and educational videos. It’s been hugely popular among students and faculty. We would like to continue expanding on the types of digital resources we offer because we know students learn best when they combine different resource formats.
Students also have access to AUA’s Institutional Repository through the Library. This open access digital repository makes accessible all of the University’s scholarly and creative output such as master’s theses, capstone projects, faculty and staff publications, as well as photos, documents and videos that capture the history of AUA. This is a rich resource that is completely unique to AUA. We really hope to grow this in the coming years by acquiring special collections that are significant to the history of the University, and which serve as valuable research material bridging Armenia and the diaspora.
Finally, we also see the physical library itself as a valuable resource. We offer space to students who are on campus all day or who don’t have another comfortable place to study, public computers, a printer, private study rooms, and interactive monitors for doing group work. We do have a great need, however, to expand and update all of those resources. Our technology is now over a decade old, and the University has changed greatly since the Library’s big USAID-funded renovation in 2012. As we look toward the future of the library, we have to make sure we have the resources and capacity to serve our growing community. 
Other than students, who else can benefit from the Library, and in what ways?
Aside from current AUA students, the Library is open to alumni, Extension students, all faculty and staff, and the broader public who are 16 years or older. Because of our extremely limited space, we generally don’t allow anyone except current students, faculty and staff to use the library space, with the exception being during summer and winter breaks. They can still come to the Library and take home our physical books, of course, but study spaces are reserved for our AUA community. Similarly, due to license restrictions, our subscription-based e-resources can only be used by current students, faculty and staff with an active AUA email address.
As you analyze circulation data, what are some interesting changing trends you have observed?
One trend that may surprise people is that our students strongly prefer physical books over ebooks. Circulation of physical books is increasing over the years (from 2,116 in 2021 to 3,828 in 2024), and students are still reading, both for fun and for learning. Books on psychology, personal development, religion, and history are often requested, as well as on data science and math. Literary works are also very heavily circulated, and we frequently need to order replacement copies because our current copies are so heavily used.
What type of support does the Library need and in what way would it help benefit its growth?
The Library is undoubtedly one of the most visited and beloved spots on campus. While this is certainly positive, our growing student population and expanding academic programs mean that the Library must be prepared to provide a variety of resources both on and off campus, covering a wide range of topics and catering to a diverse group of learners.
The bulk of our Library’s current collection was assembled over the years via donations from generous supporters of the University. While this is wonderful, it also means that our collection has many gaps, outdated materials and isn’t as diverse as we would like it to be. Over the past year, in collaboration with faculty, staff and students, we have been in the process of evaluating our current collections, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and assembling a sort of “wish list” of both physical and digital resources needed to form a well-rounded, properly curated collection.
We view our mission as serving the whole learner. This means that we acknowledge that students’ educational curiosities don’t begin and end with their academic interests, and we support their exploration through our resources. Being a university student means also educating yourself on maintaining your physical and mental health, building empathy through reading fiction, and exploring topics outside of your major. We want to provide resources for the whole learner, not just the academic. By building a well-rounded collection, we hope to contribute to the building of well-rounded individuals.
That said, it’s also extremely important that our resources are properly supporting our academic programs. The support we would receive would go directly toward strengthening the collections connected to both our current and future academic programs, for example the new Master of Arts in Multiplatform Journalism and Bachelor of Science in Economics. 
How would a library endowment help the Library with its short-term goals?
An endowment would greatly help the Library in its goal of curating its physical and digital resources. Not only are the prices of digital subscriptions skyrocketing with the inclusion of new AI features and functions, but physical resources, which we mainly order from the United States, are extremely expensive to ship to Armenia. This means that in addition to the cost of books, we spend a significant amount of money on shipping and customs charges. We are currently exploring alternative shipping options to work around these issues, but the reality remains that getting materials to Armenia is often a costly process.
In the short-term, our goals are focused both on building upon our existing resources, and also introducing newer or often overlooked materials. For our physical books, this means modernizing and expanding upon some of our existing donated collections in the humanities, arts, history and political theory from generous donors such as Vartan Gregorian, Richard Hovannisian, Louise Manoogian Simone, and Antranig Antreassian. At the same time, we want to highlight smaller but growing collections in Armenian studies, publications by Armenian women, graphic novels, zines, resources in the field of library science, and generally more newly released titles in all subject areas.
For our digital resources, it’s vitally important that we expand on our current subscriptions, and obtain higher levels of access in databases like EBSCO, Taylor & Francis, and more. These are some of our most heavily used subscriptions, but due to budget constraints, the amount of resources our students, faculty, and staff have access to is often limited. We would love to be able to open up these subscriptions to cover a much broader range of materials.
To learn more about how you could contribute to supporting the AUA AGBU Papazian Library or other endowments, you may contact the AUA Office of Development by emailing [email protected] or calling (510) 925-4282.