Kolkata :

The journey started way back in 1784 and on Monday, the oldest archive of the country, located inside Asiatic Society, started a new journey as it shifted to the digital mode.

For long, the Centre had been prodding the Society to get its valuable archive digitized but the authorities were unable to comply because of the unionized staff that often put spanners into the process. In 2006, when Pranab Mukherjee was the Union finance minister and chairman of the planning board of the Society, he urged the authorities to fast-track digitization so that the wealth could be made available in the digital domain. At the moment, only members of the Society have access to the archive.

The process could start much later and even on Monday, when the public announcement was made, only the first phase of the digitization was over. The rest will follow in phases.

In the first phase, all publications of the Society, right from 1788, when the first edition of an Asiatic Society publication came out, have been digitally reproduced and linked to the Society’s website. The formal inauguration was done by Jawhar Sircar, former Union culture secretary, who had prodded the Society in his previous capacity, to enter the digital platform.

“This place is steeped in history and is of singular importance but it doesn’t have a complete inventory yet. I am happy that the first step in digitization has happened here but in the 21st century, this is not enough. I urge the Society to accelerate the process, which can also become an income generator when non-members try to access the archive,” Sircar said.

The archive has 50,000 manuscripts in 26 languages, made in varied mediums like palm, palmyra leaves, barks of trees and paper (often handmade, not chemically treated). There are original paintings of Hodges, Daniells, Baille, D’Oyly, Solvins, Rubens and Reynolds, and are among the most valuable in the world of paintings. “In the next phase, we will digitize the paintings. There are some extremely rare views. There are 90 paintings of European masters and 125 masters of the Bengal School in our archives,” said Satyabrata Chakraborty, general secretary of the Asiatic Society. This will be followed by digitization of manuscripts.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Kolkata News / by Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey / TNN / November 07th, 2017