Our Winter Conference

Date for your diaries: Please keep Friday 19th February 2010 free for our SAALG winter conference, to be hosted by the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London, WC2B 5AZ. The conference will include a tour of the Freemasons' Hall, a talk on Freemasonry in India by Archivist and Record Manager, Susan Snell, and an opportunity to view and discuss artefacts, photographs, and correspondence in their permanent collection with their museum curator and librarian.

Forthcoming publication

Martin Moir, former Head of the India Office Records, has written a novel entitled Not Exactly Shangri-la, which is due to be published by Rupa & Co. (New Delhi) in December.

Timothy, a diffident young British academic, and Huma, a feisty young woman from India, are two ‘foreign experts’ invited to Kalapur, a remote and apparently peaceful Himalayan country, to advise on the preservation and editing of an important monastic chronicle. But far from being a harmless academic project, they soon discover that the publication of the chronicle is being used by the authoritarian regime in Kalapur to suppress knowledge of a past that threatens its own legitimacy. Moreover, far from being peaceful, Kalapur turns out to be riven by a secret resistance movement led by guerrilla fighters known as the migos, named after the yetis or wildmen still believed to survive in the remoter parts of the country. Encouraged in their historical quest by a sympathetic but enigmatic local abbot, Huma and Timothy face some terrifying experiences before finally discovering what really happened in the recent past, and in the process deepening their own relationship.
At once adventure story, orientalist romance, psychological study and serious enquiry into different views of the past, Not exactly Shangri-la explores a fictional world that is deeply strange but strangely familiar, sinister yet funny.

NACIRA conference

"Expect the unexpected : hidden resources [on Asia] in the UK" - NACIRA's 2009 conference will take place at the Royal Asiatic Society on Tuesday 8th December 2009, with an excellent panel of speakers from the National Maritime Musuem, Victoria & Albert Museum, National Archives, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Hidden histories of exploration

A major new exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) which offers a new perspective on the Society's Collections, highlighting the role of local inhabitants and intermediaries in the history of exploration.

http://hiddenhistories.rgs.org/


Exhibition Open: 10:00 - 17:00
Monday - Friday
15 October - 10 December 2009
Free Admission
Location: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Exhibition Road, London

Happy 1st Birthday Wellcome Library Blog

Congratulations to the Wellcome Library Blog on receiving 20,000 visits in its first year from people in 139 countries.

Written by Wellcome Library staff, this is an entertaining and informative blog for those interested in the Wellcome's amazing collection of medical history items. If you haven't had a chance to visit, why not do so on its first birthday?

(Photo credit: www.himetop.wikidot.com)

Royal Asiatic Society Lectures

These forthcoming lectures at the RAS are of South Asian interest:

Tradition, change and evolution: art and architecture in Sri Lanka (500 BC-1815 AD)
Dr. SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda.
5 Nov 2009, 6.00pm.

The Bibliotheca Malabarica: an eighteenth century Tamil library.
Dr. Will Sweetman.
10 Dec 2009, 6.00pm.

Lectures are held at the RAS, 14 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HD.
Admission free, no need to book, all are welcome.

Maharaja

Maharaja: the Splendour of India's royal courts opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum on 10th October. The exhibition spans the period from the beginning of the 18th century to the mid-20th century, bringing together over 250 magnificent objects, many being lent from India’s royal collections for the first time.

The Widow Colony

Harpreet Kaur's film The Widow Colony, about the Sikh killings which occurred after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, is being shown in UK cinemas.
Click on the image above for screenings.

SAALG 81st conference, July 2009

SAALG had a successful and enjoyable summer conference at the Ancient India & Iran Trust in Cambridge (you can tell by our smiling faces...!)

Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail (ASHT) events, September

This September (3rd - 26th), join in, discover and enjoy the splendour and substance that underpins the heritage connecting the Sikhs and the British.
The Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail has since 2004 presented an annual series of unique events which highlight both the historical, and present connection between the Sikhs and Britain.

In this sixth year they will be presenting a whole month of unique lectures, workshops and exhibitions serving to inspire, inform and entertain.

This years events include an exclusive performance by Tigerstyle at the Tower of London, a gallery talk with internationally acclaimed artisits 'The Singh Twins', storytelling at the V & A and a unique series of lectures.

NACIRA seminar

The National Committee for Information Resources on Asia (NACIRA) - formerly NCOLR - will be holding a seminar on internet resources for Oriental studies on 16th and 17th September at Cambridge University Library.

Applications to:
John Moffett
Needham Research Institute
8 Sylvester Road
Cambridge
CB3 9AF

Email: nacira@edlis.org or call: 01223311545

EarlyTibet.com

At the 81st SAALG conference Sam van Schaik introduced us to his excellent blog. Sam has used the blog to disseminate his research notes whilst working on the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library.

REMINDER!

Don't forget - the 81st SAALG conference is at the Ancient India & Iran Trust, Cambridge, on Friday 3rd July (see previous blog post for details and map), and it's only £10 for the day with a lovely lunch at the HQ of the AIIT (pictured).

You've still got time to let me know if you're attending, just email me at j.usher@nls.uk

81st SAALG Conference

This will be held on Friday 3rd July 2009 at the Ancient India and Iran Trust at 23 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, CB2 2BG (see map above - click on it for larger image).

As usual we have an interesting and varied programme. Registration and coffee is at 10.30, then:

11.00-11.45
Bill Noblett (Cambridge University Library): "Material for the study of Indian history in the Official Publications Collection".

11.45-12.30
Chris Gill (Strathclyde University): "Civil veterinary material in the National Library of Scotland India Papers Collection – a previously neglected resource for research into environmental history and the social history of medicine in a colonial context".

12.30-2.00
Lunch (in the garden, weather permitting)

2.00-2.45
Sam van Schaik (British Library): "The International Dunhuang Project:
Tibetan manuscript research and the cataloguing of manuscripts using Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines".

2.45-3.30
Keren Mills (Open University): "Digilab – the latest tools and technologies for teaching and learning and their application in libraries and archives".

3.30-3.40
Jan Usher (NLS): Practical session on how to contribute to SAALG’s blog.

A charge of £10 per person will be made for attendance. Please send all notes of interest in attending to: j.usher@nls.uk by 25th June, please.

New wiki guide to libraries and archives in South Asia

The Libraries & Archives in South Asia (LASA) wiki is a collaborative effort to compile a guide to South Asian libraries and archives for academics and researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The LASA wiki contains detailed information about libraries and archives in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It aims to become a full-fledged portal to research in South Asia, for the scholarly community and by the scholarly community.

Every entry in the wiki can be improved upon with new or updated information. A typical entry contains location, contact information, basic access and collection information and a link to the institution's website when it is available. More detailed information, including maps, photographs, links to online catalogs, etc. are provided when available.

URL http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lasa/ Click here to enter wiki.

LASAwiki is a project of the Digital South Asia Library (DSAL) developed by the University of Chicago Library with support from the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago. The LASA wiki was created by Samip Mallick, Assistant Bibliographer for Southern Asia, University of Chicago Library.