This is a concern that keeps me awake at night, that and partially collated unpublished texts preserved in microfilms and photocopies of scattered and poorly known, hard to access manuscripts. 

Rosane Rocher
Profesor Emerita of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania

On 11/4/24 8:12 PM, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY wrote:

Excellent suggestion, Jan. Including me, lots of scholars have several unfinished projects which may never be completed or published, but lie in an incomplete form. There should be a repository for such materials.

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpande

Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]

On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 3:58 PM Jan Kučera <jan.kucera@ujca.cz> wrote:

Dear all,

 

I am sure I am not alone with the experience of finding treasures in archives, in personal papers and other collections of various people from the past, often pioneers in the field.

 

Some of us even had the sad privilege to take over libraries and collections of our departed colleagues and teachers. And from my experience, there is one significant difference from the past: people don’t write on paper anymore. The work is increasingly done on computers, and this data is almost never available or accessible to anyone else.

 

I would like to make an appeal to everyone who feels like they have significant notes, drafts, or work-to-come they have spent decades on, if you don’t want these to suddenly disappear, please make provisions for someone to be able to pick it up or turn into a treasure to be found by future generations.

 

Thank you and best regards,

Jan

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