[INDOLOGY] Digitization of Rare books at the BORI

[Madhav Deshpande]

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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