The Association for the Research and the Archiving of Armenian Memory (ARAM) is registered at the Prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône (NPO) and has a board of 10 members who decide and lead the mission of the association.
Jean Garbis ARTIN was president from 1998 to 2006 before Jacques OULOUSSIAN, the current president.
ARAM collects, archives and stores documents, books, maps, papers, testimonies, photographs and, in general, all the elements relating to Armenia, Armenians before the genocide of 1915 and the first Ottoman massacres in 1895 and 1909, the genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the “Young Turks” Government from 1915, to the history and culture of the Armenian diaspora formed after the Genocide, especially in France and Europe.
The objective of the ARAM association is to safeguard and enhance the maximum number of documents contained in its holdings in order to allow as many people as possible to consult them, particularly through digital tools. This is a long-term effort that we strive to accomplish in the best conditions.
The association is regularly solicited through requests for exhibitions, requests from researchers and historians wishing to access the fund, but also directors or journalists. It endeavors to respond to its solicitations to the best of its ability. Located in Marseille, the association is composed exclusively of volunteers animated by the will to save and transmit this heritage.
Since 2010, the association has embarked on a long digitization process of its documentary collection. To this end, the association calls on the expertise of the International Center for Book Conservation (Arles – France). In 2012, we established contacts with various organizations to coordinate and strengthen our work. In this sense, collaborations with the BNF (French National Biblio), the Matenadaran and the National Archives of Armenia are formalized with scientific agreements. Through the gradual putting into line of this fund, the influence of the association is all the more developed.
Thanks to Nicole Ter Boghossian, Chaké Jamgotchian and Vartouhie Yailc for the translation.