4000 early printed Bengali books to be Digitized by the British Library

4000 early printed Bengali books to be Digitized by the British Library The British Library is set to digitise 4,000 early printed Bengali books amounting to more than 800,000 pages as a part of a project under the UK India Year of Culture plans for 2017.  The digitisation project is part of “Two Centuries of Indian Print” project, an international partnership between India and UK, led by the

British Library to digitize unique material from its South Asian printed books collection. The books are in high demand and span at least 22 South Asian languages. The project has received an additional funding of nearly 500,000 pounds from the Newton Fund.

The project will explore how digital research methods and tools can be applied to unique digitised collection. It will deliver digital skills workshops and training sessions at Indian institutions to support innovative research within South Asian studies.

The British Library is also collaborating with partner institutions in India to share knowledge and skills, helping to stimulate digital scholarship and build research capacity.

This exciting project will make South Asia’s rich and vibrant printed heritage accessible to everyone around the world.

About British Library

♦ The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the second largest library in the world by number of items catalogued.

♦ The library is a major research library, holding well over 150 million items from many countries, and receives a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland.

♦ The Library’s collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 2000 BC.