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1472 Manuscripts Catalogued and Digitised Click to view

The British Library Endangered Archives Programme seeks to contribute to the preservation of archival material that is in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration world-wide. This is achieved principally through the award of grants in an annual competition. Chinmaya International Foundation won an award for the preservation, cataloging, and digitization of its manuscript collect. Under this Grant a sum of £13,863. Was awarded for the task. CIF through its CIF Shoda Sansthan wing assisted by Media department and Information technology took on the massive task of digitizing the 3,00,000 and more paper and palm leaf manuscripts and was able to complete the task within time and within the Grant amount.

Paper Palm Leaves
Project Beginning Phase Estimates 3600 200
Duplicate, Damaged & Printed text & Multivolume 2328
After Manuscript Checking Phase 1272 200

Based on the feedback received for the samples sent to British Library – the digitization team put in place a digitization process which was fine tuned to meet British Library EAP standards.

METHODOLOGY ADOPTED

The process involved is of two stages - checking for Manuscript condition, completeness and digitization plan and stage 2 consists of the digitization process.

Manuscript condition:

The contents of the manuscript are examined and read and then the manuscript is made to be in correct order in terms of folios. A cataloguer completes a data sheet for the manuscripts that has the details of the manuscripts such as page numbers, author, script, subject, etc. After completion of the data sheet, the manuscript is returned to its storage location which is climate controlled and optimized for manuscript preservation.

Digitization process:

Digitization is done by a digitizer and a cataloguer in conjunction. The digitizing station has a blue backdrop with a color checker and a scale for length and width in the shooting frame. A Canon DSLR EOS 70D camera is being used to photograph the manuscripts. Images are converted with specifications of 300 dpi and 8-bit per color channel, resulting in 24-bit RGB.

Quality Control process:

After a folder is readied by the digitization team, it is reviewed by Quality Control team. The areas that are checked for are RGB, Color, Location, image quality, top side verification , BL guidelines compliance. The findings of the Quality control process are stored in a file in the same folder along with images.

We are glad you could join us on this great venture to bridge East and West, Past and Present, and Science and Religion. If you have any queries, or would like to talk to us Click here

For more information on the Endangered Archives Programme,
please visit

https://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_project.a4d?projID=EAP729;r=28464

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