[INDOLOGY] Manuscripts in India

[Elliot M. Stern]

http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/05/google-to-scan-800000-manuscripts-books-from-indian-university/

If this is the right reference, it is the University of Mysore.  

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267-240-8418

Elliot Stern



> On Jan 8, 2015, at 10:15, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I vaguely recall seeing some article a few years back (maybe on the Indology list) that Google or Microsoft were partnering with a large manuscript library in India to digitize their collection.  Does anyone remember which institute this was and what became of the project.
> 
> Harry Spier
> 
>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 10:53 PM, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu> wrote:
>> Friends,
>> 
>> Though I have had many of the same types of frustrations some of you have had in
>> accessing manuscripts in India, I do not by any means regard this as a particularly Indian problem.
>> Take my recent experience with the Société Asiatique in Paris:
>> 
>> In March last year, I approached the librarians to request access to the collection of Tibetan
>> manuscripts acquired in the early 20th century by Jacques Bacot. I was told that the collection
>> was off-limits, except to one Parisian scholar who had been engaged by the Société to catalogue it.
>> The sole way to access the Bacot materials, they said, was through that person.
>> 
>> After several months, the individual in question and I succeeded in fixing a time to visit the Bacot collection
>> together. All seemed fine. However, the evening before our appointment, I received a message from
>> that person stating that the board of the Société had decided to exclude me personally because I am
>> not a member of the Société! And the person who delivered this message, who has access to the
>> Bacot collection, is not, it turns out, a member.
>> 
>> When I then complained directly to the board of the SA, I received a rather insulting message to the
>> effect that, because the collection will have to be closed in 2016, owing to planned renovations, they
>> thought it best to exclude me now (!!!)
>> 
>> I could add stories about a number of other European collections, not to mention conditions for
>> accessing manuscripts in China.
>> 
>> All in all, though far from perfect, the situation in India seems not half bad.
>> 
>> 
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études,
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>> 
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>> 
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