American bibliographer Dr James Nye on his South Asian digital archive

ldquoHawaai jahaaz aaya maaf kijiye Ek baar phirrdquo sighs Dr James Nye from the CSIA in crisp Hindi having just landed in India while urging us to repeat a question over the phone lines A bibliographer for Southern Asia at The University of Chicago Library Dr Nye has played a crucial role in documenting and preserving thousands of valuable pieces of writing and resource material available for historians in South Asia through two major initiatives mdash the Digital South Asia Library and the South Asia Open Archives InitiativeA view of Bombay from the Rajabai Clock TowerThis evening he will present a talk titled Indiarsquos Cultural Wealth Image Audio and Publications an Open Archive for the People at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya CSMVS The talk has been facilitated by the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation in association with The University of Chicagorsquos centre in New DelhiA slide depicting the cleaning of cottonldquoThe idea is to seek collaborative partners in India Sri Lanka Nepal and other parts of South Asia These could be government bodies or notforprofits interested in making parts of Indiarsquos cultural wealth like books periodicals gramophone recordings maps and manuscripts available to a global audience The age of the material could range from ancient to modern We only need to be careful about the copyrightsrdquo he informsA rare frame of the East Indian RailwayPast forwardThe material collected through the process will be digitised and added to the existing catalogue on Digital South Asia Libraryrsquos DSAL online portal available to a global audience free of cost ldquoWe began the project in 1999 by taking important reference works such as dictionaries bibliographies and encyclopedias We have met with success till now and in a month we will see 35 million hitsrdquo shares Dr Nyea specialist in Sanskrit particularly medieval Indian texts mdash the Puranas and the UpapuranasMatras To Panticcerie Madras To Pondicherry TamilHe throws light on the significance of digitising content for South Asian studies ldquoUnlike Europe or East Asian studies where large amounts of material is available South Asia has been slow to make available the resources scholars need like historical photographs maps and books in Indian regional languages We are trying to collaborate with Indian libraries and institutions to increase the availability of resources to support any kind of serious study on IndiardquoDr James NyePreserve cultureThrough collaborations with Roja Muthiah Research Library in Chennai Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad and Mushfiq Khwaja Library and Research Centre in Karachi the digital library has archived 1000s of books and journals in Tamil and Urdu along with English journals published during the 19th and 20th centuriesldquoWe are focusing on rare resources especially newspapers because I believe that newspapers in regional languages are as rare as manuscripts For instance an Urdu journal The Adabi Dunya is difficult to find Sometimes people need to visit several different archives to get a complete setrdquo informs Dr Nye adding that not knowing a language may hinder the bibliography process Thus they work with experts like Tapati Guha Thakurta Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Kolkata and Professor Shahid Amin University of Delhi among other Indian collaborators to ensure sound decisions on the resources that need to be made available on the libraryON Today 6 pm AT Visitorrsquos Centre Auditorium CSMVS Fort CALL 22029613RSVP jnafmumbaigmailcom