Duke University awarded grant from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme

You will be interested and pleased to know that Duke University has received a grant from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme. Full information has just been released on the Duke University Libraries Blog so do take a look.

Menri Monastery in Northern India possesses the world's largest collection of manuscripts relating to Bön, the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. All photos by Edward Proctor. 

Pechas, or traditional Tibetan books, consist of loose leaves of handmade paper wrapped in cloth, placed between wooden boards, and secured with a belt. 

The collection also includes many tsakli, or handmade colorfully-illustrated initiation cards employed in various rituals.

Access to rare 20th century South Asian pamphlets

An inventory of the South Asian Pamphlets Collection at Duke University has been published online.  The majority of the pamphlets were published between 1950 and 2000, but a few date from the 1920s-1940s.   They were acquired through the Library of Congress South Asia Cooperative Acquisitions programme (SACAP). 

Arranged by country of publication, they number over 7,500, with the highest number (177 boxes) originating from India, 58 boxes from Pakistan, 15 boxes from Bangladesh and 8 boxes from Nepal.  Smaller collections are held for Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

The majority of pamphlets were published by organizations or agencies and cover agriculture, the arts, economic development, education, industry and commerce, international relations, politics and government, religion and philosophy, rural development, tourism and women. 

The pamphlets may be scanned on request to service remote research requests. For further information, see: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/southasianpams/inv/