THANJAVUR: The Saraswathi Mahal Library here has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams to digitise old books and manuscripts in the library.
It was signed on Monday by Thanjavur Collector C. Vijayaraj Kumar, who is also Director of Saraswathi Mahal Library, and Director of Sri Venkateswara Digital Library of the TTD, P.S. Reddy, in the presence of Minister for School Education Thangam Thennarasu.
The TTD will digitise the old books and manuscripts free of cost. Mr. Vijayaraj Kumar said that the digitisation would help preserve old manuscripts and provide research scholars an access to the storehouse. Hitherto, preservation was done using Citronella oil and through microfilming.
Mr. Reddy said that the digitisation had been recognised as a special feature of information technology. It would preserve valuable documents for posterity, he said.The TTD had recently started digitisation in the Connemara Library, Chennai. It had also digitised "Chandamama," a monthly magazine meant for children and youth in all languages.Vice-Chancellor, Tamil University, C. Subramaniam; Joint Director, National Archives of India, Meena Gautam; Asian Director, Digital Library Project, Bangalore, Kiran Kumar; and Ramachandran from National Library, Kolkatta, participated in the function.