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The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a major library and cultural center on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. It is a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity. The idea of reviving the old library dates back to 1974, when a committee set up by Alexandria University selected a plot of land for its new library. Construction work began in 1995 and, after some US$220 million had been spent, the complex was officially inaugurated on 16 October 2002. In 2010, the library received a donation of 500,000 books from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). The gift makes the Bibliotheca Alexandrina the sixth-largest Francophone library in the world.
The Bavarian State Library in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research library in Germany and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 10.89 million books, it ranks among the best research libraries worldwide. Moreover, its historical stock encompasses one of the most important manuscript collections of the world, the largest collection of incunabula worldwide, as well as numerous further important special collections. Its collection of historical prints before 1850 number almost one million units.
Saraswathi Mahal Library, also called Thanjavur Maharaja Serfoji's Saraswathi Mahal Library is a library located in Thanjavur (Tanjore), Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the oldest libraries in Asia established during 16th century by Nayakas of Thanjavur and has on display a rare collection of Palm leaf manuscripts and paper written in Tamil and Sanskrit and a few other languages indigenous to India. The collection comprises well over 49,000 volumes, though only a tiny fraction of these are on display. The library has a complete catalog of holdings, which is being made available online. Some rare holdings can be viewed on site by prior arrangement. Encyclopedia Britannica mentions the library as the "Most remarkable library of India".
Noolaham Foundation is a non-profit, charitable organization founded to provide enhanced access to information sources and foster knowledge-based development in Sri Lanka. It is a registered organization based in Sri Lanka with volunteer participation from all over the world. Noolaham Foundation was initiated as Project Noolaham in 2005. In 2010, it was formally incorporated in Sri Lanka.
Timbuktu Manuscripts is a blanket term for the large number of historically important manuscripts that have been preserved for centuries in private households in Timbuktu, Mali. The collections include manuscripts about art, medicine, philosophy, and science, as well as copies of the Quran. The number of manuscripts in the collections has been estimated as high as 700,000.
Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania is a national cultural institution which collects, organizes and preserves Lithuania's written cultural heritage content, develops the collection of Lithuanian and foreign documents relevant to research, educational and cultural needs of Lithuania, and provides library information services to the public.
Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia reportedly dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and spread to other regions, as texts on dried and smoke-treated palm leaves of Palmyra palm or the talipot palm. Their use continued till the 19th century, when printing presses replaced hand-written manuscripts.
The National Library of the Republic of Moldova located in Chişinău, Moldova is the main library of the state which is responsible for conservation, valorization and protection of written cultural heritage. The National Library operates according to the guiding principles of UNESCO referring to this type of libraries, it is part of the European Digital Library. Founded in 1940, it traces its roots to the Gubernatorial Public Library of Bessarabia established in 1832. At present, the National Library is one of the objectives with great value of the national patrimony and presents the treasure written and printed cultural heritage of the country. Library ensures wide public access to its collections for research, study and / or information. The Director General is Elena Pintilei.
Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. It includes records of over 50 million cultural and scientific artefacts, brought together on a single platform and presented in a variety of ways relevant to modern users. The prototype for Europeana was the European Digital Library Network (EDLnet), launched in 2008.
The Panjab Digital Library is a voluntary organization digitizing and preserving the cultural heritage of Panjab since 2003. With over 30 million digitized pages, it is the biggest resource of digital material on Panjab. There are many historically significant documents stored and made available online. Its scope covers Sikh and Punjabi culture. The library funded by The Nanakshahi Trust was launched online in August 2009. Its base office is located at Chandigarh, India.
Nancy Hatch Dupree was an American-Afghan historian whose work primarily focused on the history of modern Afghanistan. She was the director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University and author of five books that she compiled while studying the history of Afghanistan from 1962 until the late 1970s, writing about tourism and history of Bamyan, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and so on. She was fondly called the "grandmother of Afghanistan", having spent more of her life there or with Afghans abroad.
The Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) is a museum and library in New Delhi, India, which aims to preserve and reconstruct the history of the Indian independence movement. Housed within the Teen Murti House complex, it is an autonomous institution under the Indian Ministry of Culture, and was founded in 1964 after the death of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. It aims to foster academic research on modern and contemporary history. Today, the Nehru Memorial Library is the world’s leading resource centre on India’s first prime minister. Its archives contain the bulk of Mahatma Gandhi's writings, as well as private papers of C. Rajagopalachari, B. C. Roy, Jayaprakash Narayan, Charan Singh, Sarojini Naidu and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. In March 2010 it launched a digitization project of its archives, and by June 2011, 867,000 pages of manuscripts and 29,807 photographs had been scanned and 500,000 pages had been uploaded on the digital library website. Amongst noted publications of the NMML are Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Man of Destiny by Ruskin Bond, and Nehru Anthology (1980).
The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is an international collaborative effort to conserve, catalogue and digitise manuscripts, printed texts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from the Mogao caves at the Western Chinese city of Dunhuang and various other archaeological sites at the eastern end of the Silk Road. The project was established by the British Library in 1994, and now includes twenty-two institutions in twelve countries. As of 18 February 2021 the online IDP database comprised 143,290 catalogue entries and 538,821 images. Most of the manuscripts in the IDP database are texts written in Chinese, but more than fifteen different scripts and languages are represented, including Brahmi, Kharosthi, Khotanese, Sanskrit, Tangut, Tibetan, Tocharian and Old Uyghur.
The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) is a non-profit organization located at and sponsored by Saint John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota. HMML’s mission is to identify, digitally photograph, catalog, and archive the contents of manuscripts belonging to threatened communities and to make the copies available to users around the world through online catalogs.
Qatar National Library (QNL) is a non-profit organization under the umbrella of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The plans for the new national library were announced by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, on 19 November 2012, during a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Dar Al Kutub Library, in Doha, Qatar, one of the first public libraries in the Persian Gulf region, which had until then been regarded as the national library of Qatar.
The Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation, shortened as the Nôm Foundation and abbreviated as VNPF, is an American nonprofit agency for language preservation headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, with an office in Hanoi, Vietnam. Established in 1999, it has been engaging in the preservation of Chữ Nôm script remained in manuscripts, inscriptions and woodblocks.
Qatar Digital Library (QDL) is a bilingual online library which was launched as a joint venture by a partnership consisting of Qatar Foundation, Qatar National Library and the British Library in October 2014. QDL comprises one of the largest online collections of historic records on the Persian Gulf countries.
ETH Library is the largest public scientific and technical library in Switzerland. It serves as a central university library for ETH Zurich and a national centre for scientific and technical information. Besides providing information for members of ETH Zurich, it also offers resources for the interested public and companies from research and development. Its main focuses are electronic information services for university members and the development of innovative services.
The Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) is a funding programme and digital archive run by the British Library in London. It has the purpose of preserving cultural heritage where resources may be limited. Each year EAP awards grants to researchers to identify and preserve culturally important archives by digitising them in situ. The original archival material does not leave the country of origin, and projects often incorporate local training and career development. EAP focuses on material created before the mid twentieth century.
References
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- 1 2 3 British Library Tamil Collection. Tamil Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
- 1 2 3 4 Interview: Digitalizing heritage for the coming generation. Bhasha India. Microsoft. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
- 1 2 Kesavapany, A. Mani; Palanisamy, Ramasamy (2008). Rising India and indian communities in East Asia. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. PR 20. ISBN 978-981-230-799-6..