Update from South Asia Open Archives (SAOA)

Dear Colleagues,

We’re excited to share updates about the South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) (formerly SAMP Open Archives Initiative). This collective of nearly 25 libraries from the US and across the Subcontinent is dedicated to creating a freely accessible, curated collection of historical research materials on South Asia. We hope this brief update provides details into some of SAOA’s activities as we’ve taken significant steps toward building our foundation, with a goal of launching a digital archive in 2018.

SAOA is developing carefully curated thematic research collections in various South Asian languages (including English) by digitizing key print and microfilm holdings supplied by our cooperative network of Member Institutions. This content will include:

• Colonial-era administrative and trade reports
• Women’s periodicals
• Newspapers and magazines
• Census materials and gazetteers
• Important literary and other monographic sources

For example, SAOA has already begun digitizing a selection of early twentieth-century monographs listed in the National Bibliography of Indian Literature, including the Bengali titles Mandirera Kathā and Gāna: Sarala Svaralipisambalita.

SAOA has also recently collaborated with Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) in Chennai, India to digitize Tamil Women’s Journals from the early 1900s such as Mātar Manōrañcini and Pen Kalvi.

We highly encourage the research community to suggest additional titles to be considered, through SAOA's online suggestion form.

Beyond creating free and open access to the range of content outlined above, we are also working to launch a modern, sophisticated, full-featured platform for discovery, hosting, and presentation of SAOA’s content that meets the needs of researchers, scholars, students, and the general public for material on South Asia. In the meantime, please have a look at a brief article on SAOA posted by Center for Research Libraries as well as a presentation from CRL’s Global Resources Collections Research Forum.

Hopefully this update inspires you to help us expand the SAOA network by referring your colleagues to our How to Become a Member of SAOA webpage. We will share more progress with you over the coming months. Please feel free to contact me or members of our Executive Board if you would like to discuss any aspects of SAOA.

Neel Agrawal
South Asia Digital Librarian, South Asia Open Archives (SAOA), Center for Research Libraries(CRL)

New Open Archives initiative for South Asian studies seeks Program Coordinator

The newly established SAMP Open Archives initiative creates and maintains a collection of open access materials for the study of South Asia. This major collaborative initiative is aimed at addressing the current scarcity of digital resources pertinent to South Asian studies and at making collections more widely accessible both to North American scholars and to researchers elsewhere in the world.

The Open Archives initiative (OAi) will address needs in all academic disciplines, from the humanities through the sciences.  With an initial emphasis on colonial-era materials from South Asia, a carefully curated collection of resources will fill gaps in available online collections.  Several criteria will be used to select and prioritize resources for digitization, including:

• Value to research;
• Utility for a broad population of users;
• Uniqueness (not available through other credible, sustainable sources);
• At risk – due to condition, environmental or sociopolitical factors, or other threats;
• Complementarity to other resources.

The SAMP OAi currently has twenty-three members from North America and South Asia.  Institutions interested in becoming members can find additional information about the initiative and membership here.

The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) is seeking a creative and self-directed professional to coordinate the “South Asia Material Project’s Open Archives initiative.” In addition to developing, implementing and administering the program, the Program Coordinator will be responsible for outreach and participating in initiatives that leverage program results for the purpose of expanding the Open Archives initiative and sources of program funding.

Qualified candidates will have (among other requirements) proven experience in developing and implementing digital projects, program management and teambuilding skills, a successful track record in developing funding proposals, communication and web authoring experience, and demonstrated foreign language capability and knowledge of South Asia, South Asian languages, culture, history, and geography.

Full position posting may be found at: http://www.crl.edu/about/employment/program-coordinator

June 9, 2016