[INDOLOGY] Digitization of Rare books at the BORI

[James Hartzell]

Great news, thanks Patrick.

On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 2:16 PM, Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> I was at BORI last week and visited the digitization office with Prof.
> Bahulkar. They have three impressive digitizing machines, and as I
> understood it, they will make the final product available online. Right now
> it is in an intranet available only in-house. They are planning on
> digitizing their rare books library and the manuscript library. I am not
> sure whether the latter will be available to all comers on the internet, or
> will be protected by password and payment.
>
> Patrick
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 1, 2017, at 1:18 AM, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> I agree with you.
>
> On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 8:58 AM Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Madhav and friends,
>>
>> Thanks for the great news about digitization plans at BORI.
>>
>> There's a phenomenon I've begun to be aware of over the last few years.
>> An institution or person in India announces a digitization plan.  Then some
>> digitization actually happens.  But then, the resulting files are hoarded
>> and not made available to scholars.  This has happened with MS collections
>> in Kerala, Mysore and elsewhere.  There are exceptions, of course.
>>
>> What motives and ideas are behind this behaviour?
>>
>> "Digitization" is a kind of magic word.  It is a semiotic sign for
>> participation in a progressive, modern world.  It's what you do if you
>> don't know what to do.  And "digitization" is also a sign for possession:
>>  if a manuscript is digitized it has been grasped or gained in some
>> psychological sense.   A couple of decades ago there was a similar aura
>> surrounding "making a database." It was a self-standing good, and sent out
>> a semiotic sign of ownership and power.  "I have a database of the Vedas,"
>> was an assertion of power and status independent of the instrumentalization
>> of the database.
>>
>> So perhaps it's reasonably easy to account for a desire to digitize
>> something.  (NB I'm not talking about rational reasons, but about
>> irrational motives.)
>>
>> Then, why refuse to share the resulting digital files?  Perhaps for all
>> the old reasons, connected with ideas about loss of mana (in the
>> Austronesian sense), fears about making a dreadful mistake, and residual
>> anger resulting from constructions of colonial oppression.
>>
>> Excuse my ramblings!
>>
>> Dominik
>>
>>
>>
>> ​
>> --
>> Professor Dominik Wujastyk <http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk>
>> ​,​
>>
>> Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
>> ​,​
>>
>> Department of History and Classics
>> <http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/>
>> ​,​
>> University of Alberta, Canada
>> ​.​
>>
>> South Asia at the U of A:
>>
>> ​sas.ualberta.ca​
>> ​​
>>
>>
>> On 28 July 2017 at 16:37, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>>> Here is an exciting news report about digitization of rare books at the
>>> BORI:
>>>
>>> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/
>>> digitalisation-of-rare-books-at-bori/articleshow/59502406.cms
>>>
>>> I hope the digitization projects succeed and the digitized books become
>>> openly available to scholars worldwide.
>>>
>>> Congratulations to Shrikant Bahulkar and his team at the BORI.
>>>
>>> Madhav Deshpande
>>>
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>>
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-- 
James Hartzell, PhD(2x)
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia, Spain
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), The University of Trento, Italy
Center for Buddhist Studies, Columbia University, USA


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