Gift Expands Library’s Armenian Collection

Ando Vardanyan, a Glendale library worker, carefully thumbed through the frayed pages of one of the thousands of old books stacked in boxes all around him.

“This is, you could say, the Shakespeare of Armenia,” said Vardanyan, referring to a biography of author Hovhannes Tumanian. “What’s good about these [books] is you can’t find them anywhere else. These are written and published in Armenia.”

The books, 12,500 in all, were donated recently to the Glendale Public Library by the board of trustees of the now-defunct American Armenian International College in La Verne. The collection, which includes hardcover volumes with titles and mandalas imprinted in gold fleck and pocket-sized paperbacks, places the library among those with the largest Armenian-language literary offerings in the country, according to library experts.

The trustees wanted to find a home for the books close to a significant Armenian population, and Glendale seemed the logical fit, said Jack Jandegian, vice chairman of the college’s board of trustees.

More than one-third of Los Angeles County’s nearly 153,000 Armenians live in Glendale, which has the second-largest population of people of Armenian descent of any city in the country, behind Los Angeles, according to Census officials.

The donated books, valued at about $500,000, remain in boxes as library officials prepare to catalog them, said Cindy Cleary, the Glendale library’s assistant director, who worked for more than a year to coordinate the transfer.

The collection, which arrived in Glendale in late November, includes selections from classic Armenian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, said Sylva Natalie Manoogian, a retired librarian at Los Angeles Public Library who examined some of the books as a consultant for the Glendale library. The collection also includes materials written in English about Armenia.

Stowed within the boxes are volumes covering topics that include King Argishti I, who lived in the 8th century BC; books about generals, colonels and soldiers who fought in the Red Army during the Russian Revolution; and anthologies of Armenian poetry.

Cleary said the library began building its Armenian-language section in the mid-1980s, buying books from local Armenian booksellers or asking Glendale residents bound for Armenia to return with books for the library.

A small portion came from private donations, she said.

Most of the library’s 4,000 Armenian-language holdings already in circulation are available at the central branch, at 222 E. Harvard St. Most are written in the Western Armenian dialect.

The recently donated books, many of which originate from Soviet Armenia, are primarily written in the Eastern Armenian dialect, the official literary and spoken language of the Armenian Republic, said Peter Cowe, professor of Armenian studies at UCLA.

Library officials said duplicates in the collection will be shared with the Pasadena and Burbank public libraries.

Items best suited for a more academic environment will go to Glendale Community College and Cal State Northridge, they said.

Officials plan to begin offering the books for general use in about six months, after librarians have evaluated and cataloged them.

“Our hope is that it will allow us to reach out to the Armenian community and demonstrate to them that we’re trying to meet their needs by providing resources in their native language,” said Nancy Hunt-Coffey, Glendale’s director of libraries.

Libraries, to a certain extent, rely on donations to build their special collections, said Carol Brey-Casiano, president of the American Library Assn. Donations help stretch dollars and balance collections, she added.

“The strength of our libraries really is the diversity of our collections,” Brey-Casiano said. “Collections that really meet the needs of the community make the library a more meaningful place in the community.”

Armenians have scattered globally as a result of incursions, conquests and genocide early in the 20th century.

Over the course of history, Manoogian said, Armenian people carried their books with them.

“Books, culture, history, language, anything that is reflective of our heritage is very important for our community, for the Armenian people,” said Manoogian, who has worked extensively in collection development at libraries in Armenia, Jerusalem and Burbank.

The collection “is for enrichment, for enlightenment, for study, and for the preservation of culture. It’s wonderful for [the books] to have a home that is open, accessible and inviting,” Manoogian said.

For some local residents, such as Grish Davtian, organizer of a literary group that meets monthly at the Glendale library, nothing ranks higher for preserving the culture than language and literature.

“For Armenians within the diaspora, the literature is their only way of a national connection,” Davtian said.

“That’s the only actual way of connecting to the people, or nation, or culture you feel you belong to.”