0702, 2019

Using Transkribus for a solution to the automated text recognition of historical Bengali Books

By Galia Umansky|February 7, 2019|Uncategorized|0 comments

Alia Carter Using Transkribus for a solution to the automated text recognition of historical Bengali Books As part of the Two Centuries of Indian Print project, Tom Derrick –our Digital Curator based with the project at the British Library – has been working on solutions to automate text recognition of early printed Bengali books. He has recently been using Transkribus for automated text recognition of Bengali printed books. Transkribus is

1912, 2018

British Library “Two Centuries of Indian Print” South Asian Seminars podcast

By Galia Umansky|December 19, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Pam Sehmi Monday 3rd December 2018 marked the last of our current series of South Asia Seminars – which have been successfully running since November 2016. These exciting and varied talks have revolved around the British Library’s South Asia collection as well as the ‘Two Centuries of Indian Print’ digitisation project. The free talks at the British Library have created a great platform for researchers, from the UK and overseas,

1610, 2018

Islam and Print in South Asia Workshop at the British Library – Part Two

By Galia Umansky|October 16, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Alia Carter The Two Centuries of Indian Print project is proud to host the second part of a two part workshop being held at the British Library on “Islam and Print in South Asia”. Part Two will be on Friday 26th October. The emergence of print in South Asia has been understood as a transformative moment for Islam in the Subcontinent, heralding a period of revival and reform from the

2908, 2018

Two Centuries of Indian Print Project – skills-sharing between the UK and South Asia

By Galia Umansky|August 29, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Alia Carter As well as digitising and making available rare and unique books, the Two Centuries of Indian Print Project also works with South Asian institutions to engage and promote capacity-building and skills-sharing elements between the UK and South Asia. As part of this two skills-sharing and exchange programmes were organised with the National Library of India (NLI). These programmes took place in September 2017 and November 2017 and were

0108, 2018

Workshop for South Asian Archivists and Librarians – 4th to the 8th July 2018

By Galia Umansky|August 1, 2018|Uncategorized|15 comments

Alia Carter As part of the Two Centuries of Indian Print Project, the project is delivering a series of digital skills workshops and training sessions at Indian institutions to support innovative digital humanities research within South Asian studies. Members of the Two Centuries of Indian Print team have recently just returned from a fascinating trip to Delhi where we took part in an Archivists’ workshop – with packed program of

1306, 2018

The Two Centuries of Indian Print ‘South Asia’ Series at the British Library – Summer 2018

By Galia Umansky|June 13, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Priyanka Basu The ‘Two Centuries of Indian Print’ Project’ is pleased to announce an exciting line-up of talks at the British Library during June – September 2018, featuring a diverse array of subjects such as contemporary Islamic sermons in Bangladesh, territory in colonial India, housing question in colonial Delhi, Qur’an translations into Bangla, history of the P.E.N. in India, Manipuri dance, the Indian dancer Ram Gopal, Deccani scroll paintings and

2405, 2018

Digitisation of ‘Quarterly Lists’: Catalogues of Indian Books

By Galia Umansky|May 24, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Tom Derrick As well as digitising rare early printed Indian books, the Two Centuries of Indian Print project is making available online some wonderful catalogues held by the library, generally known as the Quarterly Lists, recording all books published quarterly and by province of British India between 1867 and 1947. Some of the lists can already be viewed through the British Library catalogue. A full list of the Quarterly Lists that are

2405, 2018

Nineteenth Century Bengali Farces and the Comic Tradition

By Galia Umansky|May 24, 2018|Uncategorized|0 comments

Priyanka Basu A farce has often been deemed as a genre not complete in itself, but more in the form of appending a comic representation. Farces have been considered ‘lower’ in status to ‘high comedy’ primarily due to the excess of the comic body in performance and the inherent absurdities in dialogue. In 19th century Calcutta, farces—better known as prahasana—found a prolific expression both in print and on-stage. Proscenium stage

0712, 2017

Cataloguing Bengali rare books

By Farzana Whitfield|December 7, 2017|Uncategorized|0 comments

As one of the co-investigators on the project I have been working with a Bengali cataloguer at SOAS, Priyanka Basu who joined us in April 2017 to enhance the metadata of our Bengali library records and identify further unique titles up to 1914. Pre 1914 South Asian-language printed books are unavailable in other library collections or are extremely difficult to locate and access. With the aid of a Bengali cataloguer