Aims and objectives
This project aimed to explore and digitise private collections of small newspapers and periodicals, predominantly from Western India, dating from the early twentieth century. As local productions in Indian languages (Marathi and Gujarati), these periodicals represent a varied selection from the colonial Indian periodical press, and offer a glimpse of under-recognised communities of editors, authors, printer/publishers of the period. The material for this project comprised individual and/or family collections, having been passed down generations and preserved for personal reasons, surviving as privately held collections today. The non-professional storage and handling of what is already very fragile (locally made or acquired) newsprint substrate from the early twentieth century challenges the preservation and use of this material, therefore digitisation of the more fragile parts of the relevant collections was aimed for and prioritised.
Outcomes
The Project Lead surveyed select private collections in Mumabi and Pune and digitised a set of material from them in collaboration with a small team from the local partner institution with the support of this EAP pilot grant. The material digitised includes two periodical titles: Chitramaya Jagat (12 monthly issues spanning the year 1921), published by the Chitrashala Press, Pune; and a special extended 1925 issue of Mumbai Samachar, Asia’s oldest continuously running newspaper (first issued in July 1822), published from Mumbai by Navroji Horamji Belgaumwala during the mid-1920s. A host of other titles in private collections were located and their potential digitisation negotiated over time with the families of private collectors, which required a process of trust-building and dialogue over the potential problems and benefits of digitising the material. This went a long way towards developing an understanding that could fuel further digitisation initiatives focusing on private collections that are an under-explored and undervalued resource in the Indian context. Useful connections were initiated and fostered between private collectors and local archiving institutions that could provide longer-term homes for digital copies of the material, besides advising on the care and preservation of fragile material in private hands.
The project thus achieved its two main goals: to explore a largely untapped source of valuable material that exists in the form of private collections in the subcontinent, and to establish a link between private collectors and local institutions that would help digitise periodicals that otherwise do not feature prominently in institutional collections.
