28 May 2010
Introducing the Devajit Bandyopadhyay Collection
One of the private collections digitised as part of the EAP127 project is that of Devajit Bandyopadhyay. A noted singer of North Indian classical music and Bengali songs, he is also active in the theatre, a passion reflected in his collection of theatre materials.
The collection comprises theatrical scripts, song books, and musical instruments, but it is his collection of booklets designed to promote new productions that have been digitised as part of the EAP project. These booklets, whilst not precisely programmes, contain much of the same information, such as castlists, a plot synopsis, song lyrics and photographs of the performance.
The images below are taken from the booklet promoting the play Himmati Ma, a Bengali production of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, which opened in December 1995.
Alex
08 April 2010
March Accessions 2010
When it comes to accessioning material, each month is as busy as the last. During March we received packages from five EAP projects. Looked at in other ways, this can be measured as 1,318 DVDs and one external hard drive, or 6 terabytes, or 45 archival disc boxes, or eight shelves (almost a whole bay!).
Projects that submitted material are:
Preserving the archives of the United National Independence Party of Zambia
Retrieving heritage: rare old Javanese and Old Sundanese manuscripts from West Java (stage one)
Lynda
11 February 2010
Gopal Bhar
As I progress through the Popular Market Bengali Books one popular character appears frequently: Gopal Bhar, a legendary court jester in medieval Bengal. Famed for his wisdom and ability to outwit and outmanoeuvre his rivals, he is the star of several collections of short stories. Some of the tales recall traditional stories and some place him in modern situations. Below are some covers to his books, with an opening page for one of his stories.
Alex
05 February 2010
January Accessions 2010
Last month we received material from two EAP projects.
The project Preserving early print literature on the history of Tamilnadu is microfilming books and periodicals. It's actively seeking out libraries and private owners with collections most in need of preservation. Like many archival and library collections the contents of these vary in scope, themes and formats. Details are on their EAP Project webpage.
Normally at this point I would include an image from one of the copied books or manuscripts. Instead, below you'll see two photographs taken by the project team of libraries they're working with. These show the original materials where they live. These pictures are important to me as they provide a real-life background to the microfilm and digital copies we receive.
The project Riau manuscripts: the gateway to the Malay intellectual world is copying material from private collections. The project hopes to expand the number of manuscripts available to scholars and thus allow wider research into the Malay-Muslim world. Many of the items are being copied from book sellers and antique dealers, meaning that texts not owned by public institutions will be made available for public use. Here is a page from one of these books.
Lynda
27 January 2010
Popular market books from Bengali
This week I have started to work through the images we received as part of the project: Archiving 'popular market' Bengali books.
The project produced digital copies of 2,980 books, covering such diverse subjects as "religion, folk culture, local history, popular literature, pornography and erotica,...fashion and cookery, instruction on traditional rural pursuits such as agriculture and animal farming...instruction on reparing machinery and appliances, citizen's rights, the law, government procedure, public hygiene and social reform." Quite a range!
The project copied books held by the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University, and from several private collections. Digitising these privately held texts in particular will hugely improve access to this valuable social and cultural resource. This is a significant outcome for the EAP as one of our core aims is to facilitate access to items which would normally not be made available to the public. The majority of our projects are copying material held by private indivuduals or non-government institutions.
As I work through the collections I will post about interesting titles or publication types that I come across, hopefully selecting a book or theme of the week and showing you some of the wonderful, colourful covers and page illustrations. There is a lot to choose from! One of the first books that caught my eye was an edition of ghost stories, published by the Rajendra Library and titled 'agnidrshti'. Here is the cover page:
Here's the contents page:
And here's the graphically illustrated start of a story:
Alex
09 November 2009
October Accessions
Last month we received material from two projects. Towards the end of October we received another consignment of discs from the United National Independence Party of Zambia. Included were correspondence papers from Regional Headquarters and minutes of government and provincial committee meetings, plus correspondence concerning elections. This project is nearly completed and we expect to receive more material in November.
We also received microfilm from the project Preserving early print literature on the history of Tamilnadu.
This project aims to produce both microfilm and digital copies of 19th and 20th century books and periodicals and to make them available to researchers. The material is currently housed in different library and private collections. The items being copied relate to the Dravidian and politicals movements. They also cover the histories of Vaishnaviam, Saivism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. The images here have been produced from the microfilm by the project.
30 October 2009
Visits
Although it's exciting to receive material copied from all over the world, to be honest I sometimes wish I could visit all of the EAP projects first hand. That's why it's such a pleasure when members of the projects come to the Library and visit us instead. It puts a human face to all those correspondence emails and progress reports. Recently Cathy and I met members of two EAP projects.
Last month we were visited by Dr Fakhriati M. Thahir. Dr Thahir successfully completed a pilot project and is now working on a major project to digitise private collections of Acehnese manuscripts located in Pidie and Aceh Besar Regencies in Indonesia. The manuscripts being copied are held by private collectors and dealers. They contain stories and histories relating to the Acehnese lifestyle, the kingdom of Aceh and the war against colonialism. They also contain material relating to Islamic knowledge and Islamic mysticism (Sufism).
Here is a picture of Dr Thahir and myself at the British Library (I'm on the right):
Earlier this week Cathy and I caught up with Dr Tigran Zargaryan from the Fundamental Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences, in Armenia. Dr Zargaryan's project is copying rare books, periodicals and newspapers dating back to the 16th century. The results of this project are being made available through the Fundamental Scientific Library's attractive and easy to use website. Some of the rare books may already be accessed via this site.
13 May 2009
The importance of story
During May the National Literacy Trust, along with the rest of the UK, is celebrating National Share a Story Month. I thought the EAP blog should join in the fun. Several of our projects have copied manuscripts and printed books that contain stories, tales, myths and popular narratives of all sorts. This post is dedicated to the importance of story and the role stories have in our lives.
One of our projects working in India, Archiving texts in the Sylhet Nagri script, has digitally copied 103 texts. The Sylhet Nagri script was once widely used in north-eastern Bengal. The script was used in both printed texts and hand written manuscripts to record aspects of popular culture, including religious stories. The project copied several texts telling the story of the Battle of Karbala, a significant event in the history of Sunni and Shi'a Islam.
The battle was fought between the adherents of Yazid and the family and followers of Husayn, on Muharram 10 in the 61st year of the Islamic calendar (October 10, 680 CE). Yazid and Husayn both claimed the title and position of Caliph. Husayn and his 72 followers were travelling to Kufa when Yazid, who had a much larger military force, ordered an army to intercept them. Yazid's forces surrounded Husayn at the desert oasis of Karbala.
After days of fruitless negotiations, during which the water supply to Husayn's encampment was cut off, Husayn and his band prepared for the fight that could not be avoided. The night before the battle he offered his followers the choice to flee. None accepted. The battle itself saw Husayn and his male followers killed. The women and children, including Husayn's sister Zainab bint Ali and his son, were taken prisoner.
The story of the Battle of Karbala has been seen as a fight between good and evil - the pious Husayn, who wanted to protect Islam, against the wicked Yazid, who lived impiously and owed his position to greed and bribery. Four tellings of this story have been copied by the EAP Project. Three of these are in compilations that have been called Jamnama, stories of wars and battles. These texts also contain "Jari" songs. The story is told and the songs are sung together. The other edition of the story is in a text that has been called Sahide Karbala.
The version of the story told in the Jamnama is significant for its literary innovations and the creative narrative style that made this story of a distant land rouse spontaneous and heartfelt emotions in different regions of Bengal.
National Share a Story Month is organised by the Federation of Children's Book Groups.
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