Digitizing historical manuscripts facilitates their preservation and allows easy accessibility to researchers and other users who need these scripts.

1. Digitizing Historical Manuscripts Facilitates
Preservation of Ancient Literature
Advanced technologies have made it easy to preserve age-old documents, study
their origin and hidden features. Today, many authorities prefer the digitization of
historical documents so that they can be conveniently accessed online and made
easily available to researchers and other users that need them. The University of the
Punjab (in Lahore) and the University of Dhaka are making arrangements for the
digitization of significant Sanskrit and Hindi manuscripts. The scripts include topics
such as Indian philosophy, yoga and meditation, justice, Kamashastra, Buddhist
philosophy, Vedic literature and medicine, Sanskrit grammar and composition,
sculpture, decorative art and astronomy. Many of these manuscripts are more than
thousand years old and some belong to the pre-independence era.
Converting historic manuscripts into digitized format usually involves the processes
of scanning, indexing, and OCR processing.
According to a recent report, the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) will join
hands with the Iran Culture House (ICH), New Delhi, to handle the digitization work
of both these Universities. One of the world’s most important research libraries, the
Vatican Apostolic Library is also known for its efforts towards massive digitization of
historic manuscripts. They are planning for digital archiving of 1.5 million pages,
which comprises some 82,000 items and 41 million pages.
Advantages of Digitizing Historical Manuscripts
Historical manuscripts containing unique pieces of information should be preserved
to carry over traditional ancient literature to future generations. For digitization and
facilitating online access, the manuscripts will be subjected to document scanning
and indexing.
When historical manuscripts are digitized, they will enable increased search and the
information will be accessible to more number of users. Other benefits of digitization
include reduced handling and use of fragile manuscripts, facility to copy and
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2. distribute materials, etc. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA),
the government agency that preserves and provides access to the U.S.
Government's collection of historic documents, highlights the following as the main
advantages of digitization.
• Allows access to those materials that can no longer be accessed in their
original format.
• Digitized documents ensure enhanced preservation of records (originals) by
reducing wear and tear.
• Documents in digital format allow online access to an increased number of
holdings.
• Documents in digital format facilitate users to have a better understanding of
their authenticity and archival context such as who created the records, why
they were created, and how they were used.
• Documents, when stored in digitized format, save a lot of space and allow
resources to be utilized more efficiently.
Professional assistance can be sought for digitization, as the same can save
organizations time and money. A virtual library can thus be created for future use.
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