The British Library holds the world’s largest single collection of early printed South Asian-language books, many of them now unique. Its collections include 20,000 Indian manuscripts, the earliest of which date back almost 2,000 years, as well as countless other materials from the region. This collection is the most important outside South Asia, and offers a wealth of research material tracing India’s rich literary heritage.

The Two Centuries of Indian Print: 1713–1914 project will digitise and make freely available this rich collection of early South Asian-language early printed books, ensuring preservation of fragile originals for future generations.

The project will encompass digitising 1,000 books in Bengali, amounting to 200,000 pages, as well as enhancing the catalogue records to automate searching and aid discovery by researchers.

Demand for early Bengali printed works in the Library’s collection is particularly high, and digitisation will make them available to researchers beyond the Library’s Reading Rooms, giving global access to the British Library’s South Asian printed collections, many of which are now rare or unique.

Promoting advances in research, access to cultural heritage, and progress in international relations lie at the heart of the British Library’s core purposes, and Two Centuries of Indian Print will work toward fulfilling these goals.

The initiative is in partnership with School of Cultural Texts and Records (SCTR) of Jadavpur University, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, and the Library at SOAS University of London, working with the National Library of India, the National Mission on Libraries, and other institutions in India.

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