PATNA's Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library is known as a unique repository of the past heritage, preserved in the form of manuscripts written on
paper, palm leaf, deer skin, cloth and sundry materials. It has also a modern face with 2.5 lakh books in various languages. All this makes it one of the most vibrant cultural and academic centres of the state.
And now, the library is readying to become the first oriental library in the country which will provide e-library facility. In keeping with technological advances, the library also provides digital copies of manuscripts to scholars for research and academic purposes. Digitisation of manuscripts, for their preservation on DVDs, is also underway.
The library has launched its ambitious e-library project this year because it is the death centenary year of its founder Khuda Bakhsh Khan. The digitisation work started in 2006 as pilot project by NIC Service Incorporate. "About a million pages have already been digitised but it is only one tenth of our treasure," library director Imtiaz Ahmad said and added the DVDs thus prepared will be kept in the e-library.
Already selected as a nodal agency for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Pushto manuscripts in Bihar under the National Mission for Manuscripts Programme, the library is expected to be nominated by the government of India for inclusion in the Unesco World Heritage list, Ahmad said, adding a proposal to introduce professional courses, especially in Manuscriptology and Conservation Technique, at the library is also under consideration.
The objective of the e-library project is to provide a solution for online access of digitized manuscripts with a well-defined easy-to-access methodology. Said Ahmad, "It intends to serve the library users in a new and better way of accessing the knowledge and thus enhancing the research potential of scholars. The e-repository will consist of around 3,000 rare manuscripts or about 10 lakh digitized images."
The over-a-century-old library has a collection of 21,125 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Pushto, Sanskrit and Hindi, including some rare and unique ones. The library promotes research activities in certain specific areas such as Islamic studies, Arabic, Persian and Urdu literature, comparative religion, Unani medicine, mysticism and history of Islamic lands.
The library is going ahead with the retrospective conversion of its catalogues to machine-readable format. Already the retro conversion of 50,659 books in English, 76,221 in Urdu, 13,000 in Arabic, 10,000 in Persian, 9,252 in Hindi and 51 in Sanskrit has been completed. Ahmad said the entire catalogue will be available online very soon.
"It is really very useful for the scholars and students coming here," said sexagenarian scholar S Kamaluddin Ahmad. But, he said, the traditional method of cataloguing should also be maintained. Pankaj, a high court lawyer who has interest in law books, said, "Such modernisation is a welcome step and will help scholars, students and all other library visitors."
And now, the library is readying to become the first oriental library in the country which will provide e-library facility. In keeping with technological advances, the library also provides digital copies of manuscripts to scholars for research and academic purposes. Digitisation of manuscripts, for their preservation on DVDs, is also underway.
The library has launched its ambitious e-library project this year because it is the death centenary year of its founder Khuda Bakhsh Khan. The digitisation work started in 2006 as pilot project by NIC Service Incorporate. "About a million pages have already been digitised but it is only one tenth of our treasure," library director Imtiaz Ahmad said and added the DVDs thus prepared will be kept in the e-library.
Already selected as a nodal agency for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Pushto manuscripts in Bihar under the National Mission for Manuscripts Programme, the library is expected to be nominated by the government of India for inclusion in the Unesco World Heritage list, Ahmad said, adding a proposal to introduce professional courses, especially in Manuscriptology and Conservation Technique, at the library is also under consideration.
The objective of the e-library project is to provide a solution for online access of digitized manuscripts with a well-defined easy-to-access methodology. Said Ahmad, "It intends to serve the library users in a new and better way of accessing the knowledge and thus enhancing the research potential of scholars. The e-repository will consist of around 3,000 rare manuscripts or about 10 lakh digitized images."
The over-a-century-old library has a collection of 21,125 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Pushto, Sanskrit and Hindi, including some rare and unique ones. The library promotes research activities in certain specific areas such as Islamic studies, Arabic, Persian and Urdu literature, comparative religion, Unani medicine, mysticism and history of Islamic lands.
The library is going ahead with the retrospective conversion of its catalogues to machine-readable format. Already the retro conversion of 50,659 books in English, 76,221 in Urdu, 13,000 in Arabic, 10,000 in Persian, 9,252 in Hindi and 51 in Sanskrit has been completed. Ahmad said the entire catalogue will be available online very soon.
"It is really very useful for the scholars and students coming here," said sexagenarian scholar S Kamaluddin Ahmad. But, he said, the traditional method of cataloguing should also be maintained. Pankaj, a high court lawyer who has interest in law books, said, "Such modernisation is a welcome step and will help scholars, students and all other library visitors."
0 comments:
Post a Comment