96th SAALG conference programme published

Further to the SAALG blog post on 26th May  the programme for the 96th South Asia Archive and Library Group Conference at the Weston Library in Oxford on Friday 21st July is as follows:

South Asia Archive and Library Group
96th Conference

Friday 21st July 2017, 10.30-16.30
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG

10.30-11.00 Arrival and coffee

11.00-11.10 Welcome by SAALG chair

11.10-11.50 Rachel Rowe (Cambridge University Library)
Archival adventures with ephemera! Fabric swatches, train timetables and music played by the Royal Marines Band. Treasures from the Queen Mary Indian collection, Cambridge University Library

11.50-12.30 Nancy Charley (Royal Asiatic Society)
Royal Asiatic Society collections: sorting the miscellaneous box

12.30-13.30 Lunch

13.30-14.05 Tour of the Weston Library

14.05-14.35 SAALG business meeting (and opportunity to visit the library’s current exhibitions for those who do not wish to attend the business meeting)

14.35-15.15 Edward Proctor (Duke University Library)
Pyrotechnical printing: fireworks advertising from Sivakasi, South India

15.15-15.45 Tea

15.45-16.30 Ashley Jackson (King’s College London) and David Tomkins (Bodleian Library)
Ephemera and the Empire: a tour through the British colonies and foreign possessions

Contacts:
Farzana Whitfield (fq@soas.ac.uk)
Emma Mathieson (emma.mathieson@bodleian.ox.ac.uk)

The conference fee, due on the day, will be £30.

Please confirm your attendance by emailing the SAALG Secretary on: fq@soas.ac.uk by Wednesday 12th July. Please specify any special dietary requirements.

Unfortunately, any cancellations after that date will incur a catering charge, for which we will have to invoice you.

WWII elephant rescue : archive footage released

TV, radio and newspapers are today reporting the story of 'Elephant man' and tea planter, Gyles Mackrell, following the release on the University of Cambridge's YouTube channel of a short documentary film chronicling an epic rescue mission.

Amid the chaos of the British retreat from Burma early in 1942, Mackrell mounted an operation to save refugees trapped by flooded rivers at the border with India, using the only means available to get them across - elephants.  His story is recreated from his diary, papers and cinefilms held at the University's Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge.

For more information, please see the University's press release or contact the Centre's archivist, Dr Kevin Greenbank.

Securing the future of elephants in India

Photo by James Gaither (Flickr, Creative Commons)

The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, has recently published a
report by the Elephant Task Force, titled: Securing the Future for Elephants in India.(August 31, 2010). The report is available online in pdf format at:
http://www.moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/ETF_REPORT_FINAL.pdf


The report includes chapters on monitoring systems, securing elephant corridors, poaching, the care of captive elephants, mitigating the human-elephant conflict and recommendations on governance and law.