Archive: Open Access Resources

MEAP 0096: This digital collection draws from the collection of Emdadul Haq Noor, a noted publisher and editor from the historical Bengal region. The digitized objects document cultural and religious writing from political minorities of British Bengal and post-colonial West Bengal (India) and capture the diverse thinking and experiences of Dalit and Adivasi-tribal groups in the historical Bengal region.
CSSSC Archive makes available through the Specialized Information Service: South Asia, an open-access portal of the University of Heidelberg a number of nineteenth and twentieth century Bangla periodicals .
CSSSC Archive, in its first ever collaboration with eap.bl.uk, copied two leading newspapers of South Asia, Jugantara Patrika and Amrita Bazar Patrika – approximately 270,000 pages available now on the open-access British Library portal. During 2009-11, CSSSC Archives copied two leading newspapers, Jugantara Patrika (Calcutta, Bengali, daily: 1937 - 1980) and Amrita Bazar Patrika (Jessore/Calcutta, bi-lingual / English, bi-weekly / daily: 1872 - 1890; 1892 - 1905; 1911; 1919 onward). Approximately 270,000 pages copied.
CSSSC Archive, in collaboration with eap.bl.uk, digitized rare books and periodicals, mostly in Bangla and English, from the collections of Chandannagar Pustakagar (Hooghly), Bankim Bhavan Gabeshana Kendra (Naihati), Bali Sadharan Granthagar (Howrah), Jadunath Sarkar Resource Centre, and Mudiali Library (Kolkata). Digitized in 2010-12, the project output is now available on the open-access British Library portal.
Seat of Advaita Acharya’s lineage since the 15th century and medieval center of Sanskritic pedagogy, Vaishnavism, Shakti worship, and textile production, what animates Santipur (Nadia district, West Bengal, India) now? CSSSC Archive’s collaboration with eap.bl.uk takes its viewers on that very quest. In 2014-15, CSSSC Archive, in collaboration with eap.bl.uk, copied 1265 Sanskrit manuscripts from Santipur Bangiya Puran Parishad; 78 bound volumes of resolution books from Santipur Municipality (one of oldest in West Bengal); 584 books and serials in Bengali and Hindi from Santipur Bangiya Puran Parishad, Santipur Brahmo Samaj, and Krittibas Memorial Library cum Museum (Fulia); 510 paintings, sketches, prints and photographs by the artist Lalit Mohan Sen (1898-1954).
In 2016-2018, the CSSSC Archive, in collaboration with eap.bl.uk, copied 195 manuscripts, 23 printed books, rarest of rare issues of the Chuchura bartabaha from the collection of Sisir Bani Pathagar (Guptipara, Hooghly); 80 manuscripts, some books and periodicals from the collection of Dr. Shyamal Bera; complete run of Nihar, the celebrated weekly newspaper from Nihar Press (Contai, Medinipur); 57 periodicals, 48 books, 3 manuscripts from the Bauddha Dharmankur Sabha (Bengal Buddhist Association); 491 volumes of periodicals from Sadharan Brahmo Samaj Library (Kolkata); 77 books and 73 manuscripts from Birsingha Vidyasagar Memorial Hall Rural Library (Medinipur) and Rajnarayan Basu Smriti Pathagar (Medinipur) together. https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP921 Working with languages as diverse as Odia, Farsi, Sanskrit, Pali, and Bangla, copying manuscripts from the royal court of Shrichandan kings of Narayangarh, documenting the local stirrings of anti-colonial nationalism in Medinipur to the articulations of Buddhist revival and Brahmo reform, this one remains the CSSSC Archive’s project with the most prodigious digital output. THE DIGITAL OUTPUT IS NOT YET UPLOADED.
JSTOR SAOA CSSSC Archive, one of the pioneers in the region to work consistently for open-access archiving, is a founding member of South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) https://www.crl.edu/programs/samp/saoa a consortium of North American and South Asian libraries and archives. SAOA and the not-for-profit learning organization ITHAKA https://www.ithaka.org/ have come together to share archival materials related to South Asia through the open access portal of JStor. As a contributing member of SAOA, the CSSSC Archives has already shared on open access JStor digitized copies of the Census of India reports from 1872 to 1951, Amrita Bazar Patrika and Jugantara - two preeminent newspapers from Bengal, and several Bangla periodicals, and is exploring the possibility of contributing more and more digital resources from its repository.
Founded by the brothers Shishir Kumar Ghose and Mati Lal Ghose, Amrita Bazar Patrika shaped anti-colonial nationalist discourse in ways more than one. In 2009-11, CSSSC Archives copied the newspaper and shared the 1898-1905 issues with the open-access portal CrossAsia for wider circulation.
Printed at Serampore Press and then at Bengal Secretariat Press, the multilingual Government Gazette carried information about the legislations and regulations of the India and Bengal Governments, news about auctions, job openings and court rulings. The CSSSC Archive copied some issues from Bangiya Sahitya Parishat, Konnagar Public Library, Indranath Majumdar’s private collection, and shared them with CrossAsia portal for unrestricted public access.
CSSSC Archives copied a volume of The Calcutta Police Journal (1939) from Kolkata Little Magazine Library-o-Gabeshana Kendra and shared it with the open-access CrossAsia portal for unrestricted public access. Brought out by the Calcutta Police, the publication had on offer articles on murders, pick pockets, suicide, criminology, psychology, forensic techniques and other crime detection methods by authors including Jadunath Sarkar, N.N. Law, and B.C.Law. Also musings on “Can the Police Laugh?”
National Indian Association (NIA) was founded in 1870 by Mary Carpenter in Bristol, with the assistance of Keshub Chunder Sen and it soon had several branches in United Kingdom and British India. Focused on women’s education and social reform, the association assisted Cornelia Sorabji to travel to England and complete her education. The CSSSC Archives copied some issues of the Journal of the National Indian Association from the private collection of Indranath Majumdar and shared it with the open-access CrossAsia portal.
During 1998-2002, the CSSSC Archives copied 116 Bengali and 24 English rare books, published between 1799-1950, from Indranath Majumdar’s private collection, Konnagar Public Library (Hooghly) and Moheary Public Library (Howrah) and shared them with CrossAsia portal for unrestricted public access. Biographies, poetry, legal digest in Sanskrit, satires, grammars, textbooks, caste-histories, local histories, Sanskrit plays, medieval lyrics, philosophy, sexology, disease, music, royal tours, Hindu social reforms, evangelism, organizational reports are a few keywords that one can immediately think of.
During 2018-2021, in collaboration with eap.bl.uk, the CSSSC Archive has digitized all extant 4242 issues of the Jangipur Sambad, a weekly newspaper started by Saratchandra Pandit (1879–1968) better known as “Dadathakur” in 1914 and published from Raghunathganj (Murshidabad district, West Bengal, India); around two hundred ninety four Sanskrit and Bangla manuscripts plus one Sanskrit book printed in manuscript form from Akshay Granthagar in Santipur (Nadia district, West Bengal, India), over four hundred books, chap-books, weekly newspaper issues, periodical-issues in Sanskrit, Bangla, Urdu, Farsi, Hindi, Rajasthani, Nepali, Bhojpuri languages from the private collection of Dr. Rajarshi Ghose (Kolkata, India), and nine rare printed items published by Visva-Bharati. THE DIGITAL OUTPUT IS NOT YET UPLOADED.