Dear Dominik,

I share fully your opinion and many thanks for having expressed it such a concise and yet clear way. The wealth of invaluable knowledge stored in manuscripts can be unlocked only if the manuscripts are fully accessible, otherwise it's completely lost and dead. This is the main aim I always keep in mind in all my efforts as a librarian.

Best wishes,

Camillo

From: Deepro Chakraborty [chakrabortydeepro@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2018 1:12 AM
To: indology@list.indology.info
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Fwd: Suggestions for improving services of Asiatic Society, Kolkata

Dear Prof. Wujastyk,

Thank you so much for your comments. I am forwarding it to the authority. 

Regards,
Deepro 

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 5:36 PM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Deepro,

I did not know about the AS's "30%" rule.  Administrative slowness is one thing, but the 30% rule is simply unacceptable.  No professional library outside India has such a policy, as far as I know.  And it is clearly an attack on academic freedom.  The 30% rule prevents the true growth of knowledge, which has always been the main mission of the Asiatic Society.

The managers of the AS need to understand that their manuscripts only have value when a scholar studies them.  If they lie unread on the shelf, they are dead.  The super-human efforts made by the great pandits and manuscript scribes of the past to pass their wisdom to us today is being blocked by this unacceptable limitation.

Best,
Dominik

​
--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk
​,​

Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
​,​

 University of Alberta, Canada
​.​

South Asia at the U of A:
 
​sas.ualberta.ca​
​​