BORI submits proposal for digitalisng its archivies

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">PUNE: For decades together, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), suffered for want of funds. <br /><br />Now, however, with funds pouring in from India and abroad, BORI hopes to do better at preserving its ancient manuscripts. On top priority in the BORI Wish List is a project for digitizing manuscripts.<br /><br />On Monday, Indologists and intellectuals from BORI urged union Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Murli Manohar Joshi for the "Digitisation and automation" of all the archival material lying in BORI on priority basis.<br /><br />BORI which has an annual budget of Rs 50 lakhs has not received a penny from the government in the last three years. Pending dues with the government amount to Rs 33 lakhs. "What we need annually is about a crore of rupees," Saroja Bhate, BORI’s honorary secretary said. <br /><br />Already, funds of nearly half-a-crore rupees have been collected for BORI''s revitalisation. <br /><br />This includes the Rs 18 lakhs donated directly to BORI, funds collected by newspapers Sakal and Loksatta and those promised by the Pune Municipal Corporation and the state government. <br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />We need funds for digitisation, micro-filming and scanning of all the rare books, Bhate asserted. <br /><br />BORI on Monday submitted a Digitisation and automation proposal to the union HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi. If the proposal is approved, BORI will sport a digitally automated library, digital archive all government manuscripts and rare books. "Digital archiving of the old manuscripts and rare books from the library will save the data from further deterioration," Bhate said. <br /><br />Speaking to <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Times of India</span>, Joshi said the digital archiving proposal submitted by BORI was grand, but a costly bet. "I will see what best can be done. I will discuss it with my colleagues in New Delhi," Joshi assured. <br /><br />The proposal also suggests digitization of the institute’s major enterprise, the Prakrit Dictionary and Mahabharata Cultural Index.<br /><br />"Some of the volumes have been published, but if it is digitized, the remaining volumes will be completed early. However, one has to work on the specific economics of the digitization proposal," Bhate said. <br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal"><br />The union ministry of Cultural Affairs has already initiated the conservation and documentation of rare manuscripts in BORI under the National Mission for Manuscripts Project (NMMP) in the month of June-July 2003. <br /><br />German Indologist Michael Witzel explained the importance of using modern technologies such as microfilming, scanning, digitisation. <br /><br />In an article titled, Vandalism and Preservation in The Hindu newspaper on January 12, Witzel suggested different digitisation, micro-filming, scanning and storage techniques on the lines of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP). <br /><br />"The films of the NGMPP are stored in two locations, and thus are virtually immune from accidental or intended destruction. Nothing short of a simultaneous strike on Kathmandu and on Berlin can now destroy that country’s written heritage," he said in the article.<br /></div> </div>