Book lovers rejoice, Tamil Nadu Virtual Academy digitises and uploads around 10K rare Tamil books
A chunk of the books are from the personal
collection of Serfoji II, a former ruler of Thanjavur, while others are
com
More than 4,000 rare Tamil books maintained
at the medieval Saraswathi Mahal library have been digitised and uploaded
in digital format in the digital library, created by the Tamil Virtual Academy
(TNVA).
In the first phase, one lakh books are
to be digitised. So far, about 10,000 books and magazines from all the
participating institutions have been uploaded in the digital library website
In the medieval Saraswathi Mahal Library, formed during the Thanjavur Nayak Kingdom (1532-1673) and developed during the Maratha Kingdom (1674-1855), there are as many as 60,000 books. Of these, 3,800 books are part of the personal collection of Rajah Serfoji II (1787-1832)
About 1,900 books from his personal
collection have been scanned and uploaded recently in the library website. The
catalogue of these books are available for free on the website, the officials
said.
The academy has identified eight centres
across the state, including Saraswathi Mahal Library, U Ve Sa Library,
Government Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Centre, Connemara Library
and Tamil Nadu Archives, Chennai. In all these places, scanners have been
installed and digitisation is underway.
The books can be read online or downloaded
for free from their website, an official, involved with the digitisation
project said. The digitisation of rare books at the library, with the help of
the Tamil Nadu Virtual Academy (TNVA), has been going on for more than a year
now. TNVA had taken up digitising books published from 1556 till 1957, since
the copyright act came into effect in 1957.
"All these books collected by King Serfoji were printed before the year
1830," an official on the project told Express. The digitisation of
the remaining books at the library is on with six scanners installed at the
library premises.
Besides uploading the books on the web portal
of Tamil digital library, the digital copies of the books are also available
with the Saraswathi Mahal library. Researchers and students could read them
here on offline mode and in certain cases they could get a copy of the
book.
A separate digital library for the purpose is
in the making at Saraswathi Mahal Library premises. The digital copies of the
books from here as well as from other nodal centres where the Virtual Academy
has deployed scanners, will be available in the proposed digital library,
sources added.
(This story was first published in the New
Indian Express)
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Knowledge
Repository
Khaitan & Co
