Friday, August 1, 2014

OPEN ACCESS ONLINE ARCHIVES OF TAMIL BOOKS

OPEN ACCESS ONLINE ARCHIVES FOR TAMIL

N.Nandhivarman

Vatican Library is known as Bibliotheca bibliothe carum which means library of libraries. Vatican Apostolic Library has 80,000 volumes in manuscript section and a 75,000 volumes of archival collections. British Library in London has 56 million items in its major catalogue. Thirteen million books, journals, newspapers, conferences, maps etc. 37 million journal articles, e-books and hundreds of data base , source archives items, web archive links , over 400 research data sets. The British Library funds projects under endangered archives programme.
Our Connemara Public Library in Chennai has 4,78,273 books as per the online public access catalogue. Connemara Public Library at Chennai is one of the four National Depository Libraries which receive a copy of all books, newspapers and periodicals published in India. Established in 1896 the library is a repository of centuries-old publications, wherein lie some of the most respected works and collections in the country. It also serves as a depository library for the UN. The library was as part of a cultural complex that grew in the grounds of what was once called 'The Pantheon'. The entire complex now boasts buildings that reflect architectural unity, even while demonstrating the various stages of Indo-Saracenic development, from Gothic-Byzantine to Rajput Mughal and Southern Hindu Deccan.

The Internet Archive's Digital Books Collection
“The Internet Archive and Open Library offers over 6,000,000 fully accessible public domain eBooks. This includes a special modern collection of over 500,000 eBooks for users with print disabilities, and a very interesting  modern collection for the world at large. You can browse, read and borrow fascinating contemporary materials at Open Library.org.”

Open Library is a free, digital lending library with millions of eBooks that can be read in a browser or downloaded for reading offline. Originally developed to support the Print Disabled community, Open Library now contains public domain and contemporary eBooks.  

The Internet Archive also encourages libraries, content holders and the reading community at large, to have their printed materials non-destructively digitized and put online for the benefit of all. The Internet Archive has digitized over 2.1 million books and microforms. Both large and small collections of monographs, serials, archival materials, maps, diaries and photographs to name a few, can be digitized in over 33 global scanning centres found on 4 continents.  Since 2005, the Internet Archive has collaborated and built digital collections with over 1100 Library Institutions and other content providers. Partnerships include: Boston Public Library, the Library of Congress and the Lancaster County's Historical Society. These collections are digitized from various media types including: microfilm and microfiche, journals and serial publications, and a wide variety of archival material. Significant contributions have come from partners in North America (American and Canadian Libraries), Europe and Asia, representing more than 184 languages.

The libraries of the past are being replaced by Online Open Access Archives and Libraries. Simon Warner of Carnell University of USA  opines that “The Open Archives Initiative “ should be the order of this century.

The Universal Library Project, sometimes called the Million Books Project, was pioneered by Jaime Carbonell, Raj Reddy, Michael Shamos, Gloriana St Clair, and Robert Thibadeau of Carnegie Mellon University. The Governments of India, China, and Egypt are helping fund this effort through scanning facilities and personnel. The Internet Archive has contributed 100 k books from the Kansas City Public Library along with servers to India. The Indian government scanned the appropriate books. The Internet Archive has performed automated conversion of these scans into this collection.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community. BHL also serves as the foundation literature component of the Encyclopedia of Life .

While the world is moving towards digitizing books, my personal hunt for rare books yielded mixed results. I could trace a book but could not Xerox or copy it since it was damaged beyond redemption.

The Jesuit Mission of Madurai maintains an archives in Shenbaganur near Kodaikanal of  and there I found the Tamil-Latin Dictionary of Veeramamunivar. Dictionarium Tamulico-Latinum by  Beschi and Rottler was published in 1852 at Nagapattinam. Only few pages, because of the worst condition of the manuscript could be Xeroxed. It struck to me digitizing it and uploading in net as open access material is the only way to preserve it . For better interaction between the two classical languages Latin and Tamil and for present day Latin speakers to understand Tamil, this dictionary is of immense value. Similarly Grammatica Latino-Tamulica by Veeramamunivar known as Constantius Josephus Beschius printed by Saint Josephs Industrial School Press , Trichinopoly in 1917 is another rare book which would help Tamils to know Latin grammar was found in Shenbaganur Archives.

The second Edition of Dictionnaire Tamoul-Francaise by MM.Mousset and L.Dupuy published by Pondicherry Mission Press in 1895 [second edition] is preserved in Shenbaganur. This would enable Frenchmen to understand Tamil, whereas the same authors had brought out Dictionnaire Francais_Tamoul in the year 1911 from the same press. This would be of help to Tamils to learn the French language. It is available in reprints but has no takers is another story.
Having visited various archives in connection with my project titled Translations of Sangam Classics in Classical, Foreign and Other Languages for Central Institute of Classical Tamil, I could find rare books but could not copy them or Xerox them . My attempts to take photographs of some books will reveal the futile struggle which all scholars cannot afford to do.

Like U.Ve.Swaminatha Iyer another scholar or his reincarnation cannot be expected to come alive by the fag end of this century to start campaign to save rare books which appeared in Tamil and printing technology was introduced to Tamils by westerners.

 It struck to me that in collaboration with Anna University, a Tamil NRI based in California Kumbakonam B.Chandrasekar who funded the India’s first research centre in public-private partnership succeeded in inventing first Tamil search engine like Google or yahoo and named it Kazhugu.. AU-KBC research centre had also launched Online Tamil Dictionary “Agaraathi” and this prompted me to suggest a tie-up of Central Institute of Classical Tamil and Anna University-KBC Research centre for digitizing all rare Tamil books and creation on Online Open Access Archives.


During the International Seminar and Conference on Information Technology in February 1999 a decision to start Tamil Virtual University was announced. Tamil Virtual University renamed as Tamil Virtual Academy has a website visited by 2,34,4272 visitors. A birds eye view of the site will reveal lot more had to be done. In Dictionaries they have uploaded Pals Dictionary English-Tamil , Tamil-Tamil Dictionary by M.Shanmugam Pillai, and Madras University Tamil Lexicon Volume 1 to 7. Tamil Virtual Academy has an Electronic Dictionary with spelling. The Tamil-Latin Dictionary or Tamil –French Dictionary and grammars referred just as sample, had to be digitized and uploaded.



Another ambitious project of Government of Tamilnadu was the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project which started in 1974 and ended in 2011, with 12 Volumes in 31 parts running into 12,000 pages being printed and distributed to the libraries of Tamilnadu. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of Tamil Language which was initiated by Deveneya Paavanar and finished when R.Mathivanan was the Director in 2011, needs to be digitized and uploaded as Online Free Accessible Archives material. But the Former Director of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project R.Mathivanan opined these dictionaries had to be updated and additional inputs incorporated. Printed copies have been exhausted and reprints are required, he said.

The Tamil Virtual Academy had published for online accessibility the Tamil Encyclopaedias , a monumental work initiated by Education Minister of Madras Presidency Avinasilingam Chettiar [right ] and edited by Perisamy Thooran [left] in picture. 10 volumes are for public accessibility. Similarly Children’s Encyclopaedia too is there in just a click away in Tamil Virtual Library.

The University Library, a replica of the Indian Parliament House in its structure is located prominently in the campus of the University. As an ever-growing unit for knowledge and information, the library concentrates not only in purchasing new books but also to collect and preserve old and rare books for its shelves. As on date, the total number of books is 1,36,324 and the total number of periodicals is 393. A few rare personal collections of great scholars however procured. Mention may be made of an old collection procured from the first mobile library started in 1931 at Mannargudi. India Office Library Records (1600-1900) are available in Microfilm. Scholars of repute, researchers and students frequently visit the library for reference. Moreover, a current awareness service, selective dissemination of Information and reprographic service are offered to them. Apart from the availability of Photostat machine, materials such as linguaphone records, audio cassettes, video cassettes and CD's are available for reference in the Library.
.8 Rare books
This library has got more than One Lakh of rare books and Periodicals. Some of them are:-

Serial
Number
Year of
publications
Author
Title
1
1553
D. Hieronymi Strido
Omnes Quae Extant
2
1578
Plato
Opera Quae Exlast Ominia (Greek Latin)
3
1604
Gruler (Jan)
Fax Artium Liberalium (Latin)
4
1608
The Bible
5
1678
Rheed, etc.
Hortus Indicus Malabaricus 12 volumes
6
1696
Ovington (J)
A Voyage to Suratt in the year 1689
7
1698
Refulatio Alcorani
8
1781
ஞானமுறமைகளின் விளக்கம்
9
1826
Leyden (John)
Erskins (William)
Trs
Refulatio Alcorani
10
1858
Tripe (L)
Photographic views in madura
11
1882
Beschi (C J)
Grammar of the High Dialect of the Tamil Language


It is high time Tamil Virtual University gets back its old name and strengthened by making it topmost Digital Archives of Tamil books. Tamil University Thanjavur, International Institute of Tamil Studies both under State Government and Central Institute of Classical Tamil under Human Resource Development Ministry of Government of India must be made epicentres to trigger knowledge explosion by enriching their libraries converting them into Open Access online libraries to benefit Tamils and other language scholars spread across the continents. Pondicherry Central University and its Anandaranga Pillai Memorial Library, Romain Rolland Library 187 year old heritage left by French should become online libraries.

Private initiatives by Tamil Electronic Library of Malaysia, Project Madurai, Tamil Heritage Foundation etc are laudable but it struck to me that every house can digitize its collections. Former Principal of Teachers College Pollachi Nasan, through his website thamizham.net  had added 10814 books and 34402 journals totalling 45216 collections in Tamil. A Bachelor has everything arranged in his two room house at Pollachi and digitizes at the rate of 1000 pages per hour.
  
Pollachi Nasan.

How he could do this ?  to my  surprised query he told Japanese technology helped him.
The Easy Book Scanner - an Introduction to this 1000 pages per hour

To build the above scanner
With technology coming to help every household in Tamilnadu which houses rare books of past generations, could buy such easy scanners and keep all their home library books as e-books and prevent loss or destruction of books due to vagaries of time.



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