Soon, centuries-old manuscripts will be a click away!
By Girish Kumar Dubey
Varanasi, June 1: Around 7000 manuscripts preserved at the Central Library of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) would be scanned and launched soon on the internet for the convenience of research scholars.
Dr. D K Singh, Deputy Librarian of BHU recently disclosed details of this new project being undertaken by the university.
Under this mission, around 11 lakhs pages of literary and historical works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali and other languages, and at least 11 lakh pages from the rare manuscripts have become digital and suitable for launch on the internet.
This task of digitalising the manuscripts is in the penultimate stage and in another two months, the rare literary material will be just a click away for the scholars and researchers.
"The Central Library has digitised its all 7000 manuscripts. We have compiled 11 lakh pages and our next step is to make the material available on line. To begin with, the material could be accessed from any computer system within the campus. Later, it will be available on internet," said Dr. D K Singh.
As per the guidelines of 'National Manuscript Mission,' the manuscripts are being photographed or scanned to safeguard them from any possible damage.
B B Upadhyaya, Technical Head of BHU said a team of 56 persons has been working almost round-the-clock to prepare the manuscripts for net uploading.
"To digitalise a manuscript, we first clean it and take a picture of every page from a digital six print mega pixel camera. Then, we put this on computer and with the help of certain soft wares, we transfer it safely on a compact disc (CD). By digitalising the manuscripts their life is increased. The researcher can read them on the net and can take a print out without ever touch it," said Upadhyaya.
Although most of the manuscripts will be readily available in their original form on the internet, for a non-professional understanding many vintage scripts like 'Sharada' and 'Gurmukhi' could be quite cumbersome. Hence, the BHU have also been working on the prospects of translation soft wares.
Website of library:
http://www.bhu.ac.in/bhulibrary/
