About this collection

    The first Armenian book was printed in Venice in 1512 by Yakob Meghapart. Between 1512 and 1513 he printed five titles: "Urbatagirk", "Parzaytumar", "Pataragatetr", "Altark" and "Tagharan". Following the initial period Armenian printing spread rapidly during the XVI-XVIII centuries into cities with large Armenian presence such as Venice, Constantinople, Rome, Lvov, Milan, Isfahan, Livorno, Marseilles, Amsterdam, Madras, Calcutta, Smyrna, Etchmiadsin, Trieste, Petersburg, Nor Nakhijevan, Astrakhan. Thanks to Armenian bibliographers Dr. Ninel Voskanyan, Revd. Dr. Vrej Nersessian and other scholars the early printed book collection has been catalogued to the highest standard in three sequences: 1512-1800; 1801-1850 and 1851-1900.
Successful realisation of this project will:

• improve the facilities for Armenian and international users' accessing Armenian rare book collections;
• supply researchers with easy access to high-quality, well structured unique resources and the tools, interfaces to help them effectively organise research processes;
• open the material to scholars worldwide, currently unable to study them firsthand due to distance;
• prevent further physical deterioration of the collections.

Search Hints:

For Boolean search "OR" from the 'Search in Text for' drop down menu select 'some'.
For example, Boolean search Միքայել OR Ադամ will retrieve results containing or Միքայել either Ադամ
For Boolean search "AND" from the 'Search in Text for' drop down menu select 'all'.
For example, Boolean search Ուրբանյան AND Խորհրդատետր will retrieve results containing both Ուրբանյան and Խորհրդատետր
Truncation searching allows you to retrieve books containing variations on a search
term. To execute a truncation search, type the first few letters (stem) of the keyword
followed by an asterisk (*).
For example, truncated author search: Չամ* will return Չամչյան, Չամչեան, Չամուռճյան.

The complete collection comprises 6 subcollections. Those currently available are:

Armenian Early Printed Books (1801-1850)
Armenian Rare Books (1512-1800)
Armenian Early Printed Books (1901-1920)
Armenian Early Printed Books (1851-1900)
Books Without Publication Date
Foreign-language books with Armenian pages (till 1800)

You can check (and alter) which subcollections you are currently using on the Preferences page.