Asiatic Society launches digital archives, website

Kolkata : About two lakh pages of journals from as far back as 1788 till date have been put online as a part of the digital archives of the Asiatic Society, a research organisation of national importance here.

The publications and memoirs will now be available on www.asiaticsocietykolkata.org, which was launched today, Asiatic Society Publication Secretary Ramkrishna Chatterjee said.Asiatic Society President, Professor Isha Mahammed said very old manuscripts, old paintings by Europeans and works of famous sculptors were also being digitised and uploaded on the website.

"It had started from library, then to manuscripts which had already been completed totalling 2 lakh pages. All are being put on public domain," Mahammed said.Former Prasar Bharati CEO Jawahar Sircar, present at the launch and architect of the 14-point museum reforms to link them, said, "The Asiatic Society is a repository of more heritage, more wisdom than perhaps any other body."The sheer volume of digitised catalogues and manuscripts, the inventories... will be put up on public domain, with a huge quantum of knowledge for researchers," he said.

According to Secretary and Curator of Victoria Memorial Hall Dr Jayanta Sengupta, it is a small step, a combined endeavour to digitise materials for public domain. It also has a huge revenue-generating potential."In Victoria we have seen how big the demand is. We acquired collections of work of Abanidranath Tagore and Rabindranath Tagore. For over past three years, we got 45 requests from scholars for image of Abanidranath's paintings," he said, referring to Asiatic Society's digitisation of rare ancient paintings.

The publications page of the Asiatic Society contains categories like books, bulletin, catalogues, journals and memoirs among others.The Asiatic Society was founded by civil servant Sir William Jones in January, 1784.