[INDOLOGY] announcing HANSEL

[Tyler Neill]

Dear All,

Thanks for the encouraging messages, those of you who reached out off-list!

A few clarifications:
- No, I won't be importing all GRETIL e-texts, but I'm happy to help
migrate individual items that you'd like to keep working on; explained here
<https://hansel-library.info/about#faq-gretil>.
- I've now added readable transcripts to the Getting Started videos.
- @Sebastian: Yes, imperfect but useful OCR-based text is fine to start
with! Metadata will try to be clear about current quality status. The exact
quality standard is still subjective, but I'm open to more objective
measures.
- Supplementary, not-Sanskrit-but-Sanskrit-related material — for example,
a bit of bibliography or a translation — is also encouraged, and I'll find
a way to present it. There are of course other, more established options
for sharing serious scholarship without journal gatekeeping or making your
own website: Humanities Commons, Internet Archive, Zenodo, GitHub — and
things like Dropbox or Google Drive, of course. But I'll do my best to help
if HANSEL somehow seems like the better fit.

Kind regards,
Tyler


On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 8:27 PM Sebastian Nehrdich <nehrdbsd at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Tyler, dear all,
>
> WIth a lot of gratitude for you to take this step and move a successor
> forward! I hope there will be plenty of contributions, and I'll certainly
> try to get some of the data we collected to you as well! Do you have min.
> quality standards, i.e. since OCR technology has come a long way in recent
> years, OCRs of IAST and clearly printed devanagari works are nowadays
> almost ready to use for rough referencing (with some caveats of course).
> With many thanks,
>
> Sebastian
>
> On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 4:00 AM Tyler Neill via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I am pleased to share a new project designed to help fill the gap left by
>> the discontinuation of GRETIL.
>>
>> Project website: hansel-library.info
>> Blog post: tylerneill.info/blog-kalpataru-diaries/hansel
>>
>> This is a new, open-source platform for Sanskrit e-texts, which I am
>> building from scratch for my own enjoyment and as a service to the global
>> Indological community. I intend to grow it slowly and steadily, and the
>> plan is to eventually involve more members of the community in
>> its maintenance, much like this listserv. For now, as sole creator and
>> curator, I will be balancing it with other commitments, but I have designed
>> the system with a fair bit of automation to support the work.
>>
>> Please be in touch if you would like to contribute Sanskrit e-text
>> materials to the site! I would also like to thank the colleagues who have
>> already provided initial feedback, corrections, and materials.
>>
>> Happy holidays and warm regards,
>> Tyler
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
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>>
>
>
> --
> Sebastian Nehrdich
>
> Distinguished Assistant Professor
> Tohoku University
> Center for Integrated Japanese Studies
>
> 東北大学 合日本学センター
> ディスティングイッシュトアシスタントプロフェッサー（助教）
>
> 〒980-8576
> https://cijs.oii.tohoku.ac.jp/
> sebastian-nehrdich.com
> ✉️ nehrdich at tohoku.ac.jp
> ☎️ 022-795-3822
>
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