This blog exists mainly because I participate in the "23 Things Cambridge" online workshop. Through this workshop I hope to learn how web tools can be useful in library and archive work. I am an active user of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Before this media were available I created and maintained my own website. I am new to blogging because I don't think my life is exciting enough to entertain other people, so I'm not going to blog about my life.
Incidentally, I am about to start cataloguing some of the archived collections at the Centre of South Asian Studies. Anybody who has been fortunate enough to visit the centre will know about the wealth of information, be it books, microfilm or audio/video recordings, the centre has to offer (most of the latter ones online, but more about this later). However, only very few people will know about the "hidden" archive, i.e. those items that aren't available in the library and many of which haven't even been catalogued yet.
Rachel Rowe (the Smuts Librarian for South Asian & Commonwealth Studies) and I thought that some of you out there may be interested in
1) What's in these collections,
2) How work on cataloguing the collections is progressing,
3) What kind of difficulties a junior archivist/librarian encounters and
4) How she manages to solve these problems.
Overall, this blog might be of interest for anybody interested in libraries, archives, collections and anything related to South East Asia. So another thing I hope to get from the "23 Things Cambridge Workshop" is some feedback on my posts from experienced librarians and archivists. Any comments will be highly appreciated.
As a basic question - but not one the Centre's website seems to mention, what gets counted as 'South Asian'? Is it predominantly the Indian subcontinent, or do you cover countries such as Thailand/Philippines as well?
ReplyDeleteHello Magistra, 'South Asian' includes other countries such as the Philippines or Indonesia as well. However, due to the influence of British colonial times, there is a definite bias towards India in the collections.
ReplyDeleteI really like your list of things for your blog. It's given me ideas for an Old Library blog (but that's sometime in the future...). I've a feeling Cam23 is going to keep me busy right now.
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