The Civilitas Public Forum entitled “In the Beginning was the Word” was held on Friday, October 15 at the Ani Hotel, in Yerevan. This forum marked the conclusion of one stage of a Civilitas program, funded by the US Embassy, intended to transform Libraries Into Centers of Civil Society. Civilitas’s mission is to support the strengthening of civil society, and reading and information is essential to that process. 
The public forum featured 27-year-old writer, poet Karen Antashyan, the Director of the US Embassy Information Center Nerses Hayrapetyan and Armen Martirosyan, Director of the Antares Publishing House. Discussion revolved around a common concern: the obvious decline in interest towards books, reading and publishing too.

Salpi Ghazarian, Director of the Civilitas Foundation, and a former librarian, moderated the program. She noted that the world over there is a discontent with the decline of reading, and the competition with the Internet. She asked the speakers to identify what it is in Armenian society that has caused the break in the chain between writer, publisher and library or bookstore.   

Karen Antashyan spoke about what he called a “period of cultural decline” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a market economy, he said, we need to analyze the “4 P-s” of a book - product, price, place and promotion – all of which are needed to encourage sales. In this chain, the young writer put the responsibility on publishers, suggesting that they have to be motivated to invest and to profit from literature.

Armen Martirosyan, the publisher on the panel said categorically, that it’s not profitable at all to be in the publishing business in Armenia today. Books don’t sell because the public doesn’t read. He compared the price of books per kilo, to almost any other commodity in Armenia. He concluded books are cheaper, but not sold in large quantities.
Nerses Hayrapetyan, a librarian who has been working in various capacities to improve Armenia’s libraries for years, talked about the limited capacity of libraries. According to some statistics, 95% of Armenia’s libraries have not seen new books since 1991. It is libraries that help sustain publishing, and in Armenia’s case, libraries are unable to do that.
Nevertheless, even old books can be read if a library is inviting to readers. Hayrapetyan referred to the Civilitas Libraries program, “We implemented the Libraries as Centers for Civil Society program, and as a result, the number of readers increased in libraries where the atmosphere is more hospitable.” (Through this program, ten libraries outside Yerevan received funding to do partial renovation, install heating, purchase computers, furniture and books.)

Armen Martirosyan agreed that if libraries had the capacity to support publishing that would be useful. But he went further, insisting that the problem is deeper.
“Society doesn’t appreciate intellectual output. And we have created that kind of environment.  If children see that it does not take intellect to reach the top, that it’s possible to drive good cars and have top jobs without reading or learning, then such intellectual activity is devalued,” he said.
Antashyan proposed that such an environment can only be challenged through good, consistent, frequent public relations. 

Vartan Oskanian, President of the Board of the Civilitas Foundation agreed that to get revive the public’s interest in books and literature, the atmosphere needs to change.

“The state has a great role here,” he said. “By allocating funds, by creating television programs, and by starting from the schools. Who are our role models? Thugs or oligarchs? Or should we create new heroes?”  
Those in the audience whose work involved digitizing reading material viewed the issues differently. They believed that there are readers, but that the nature of reading material has changed, and that the question of access to digitized information must be addressed.

Salpi Ghazarian, the moderator, concluded that the discussion had managed to raise questions and that further discussion, to arrive at answers, would have to take place online.  
“The problems we heard today – access to good literature, to world literature, support for publishers, the tension between reading books, and finding quick information online – these are global problems. Our problems are not different, it’s just that we need to find different answers,” she said.