(The following is a post by Charlotte Giles, South Asia reference librarian, Asian Division.) Valuable pieces of ephemera trace shifts in ideas, issues of importance, and the diversity of views in society at the time of their distribution. Because these materials are widely distributed to the public, they often create a meaningful and lasting snapshot …
With 900 freely accessible online items at launch, the South Asian Digital Collection features primary sources on a variety of subjects. This blog looks at the new collection’s items related to colonialism in South Asia, vernacular literature, religion and philosophy, grammar and linguistics, the Rebellion of 1857, and travel accounts by European and American authors.
The Library gathers many stunning examples of the great poetic traditions across the globe, one of them being the Urdu masnavi, "Sihr ul-Bayan," by the Indian poet, Mir Hasan.
In this blog post, 2023 Junior Fellow Amina Malik discusses her project to inventory the Asian Division’s serials in South Asian languages. The post also offers insight into this collection by looking at the Urdu publication “Ak̲h̲bār-i k̲h̲avātīn,” a serial for Pakistani women on education, society, international news, and many other topics.
On Friday September 29, the Asian Division of the Library of Congress will be hosting a partial day display and talk in the Thomas Jefferson Building (rooms LJ110/119) celebrating the diversity of the Library’s collections through textiles, in collaboration with the African and Middle Eastern, Prints & Photographs, Geography & Maps, and Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Rooms.
While staff work is what allows researchers to conduct research, their presence in the Library of Congress is foundational to the creation of the culture at the Library. This blog is an interview with Phong Tran, a librarian, and currently, Deputy Director of the New Delhi Overseas Operations Field Office, conducted by Charlotte Giles.
This blog celebrates the New Delhi Overseas Operations Field Office’s 60th anniversary, looking to the office’s past, present, and future operations of acquiring and processing library materials in multiple South Asian languages and formats.
While staff work is what allows researchers to conduct research, their presence in the Library is foundational to the creation of the culture at the Library. This blog is an abbreviated version of a longer virtual interview with Shantha Murthy, a librarian and cataloger working in the Middle East and South Asia Section (MESA) of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA) Unit, with a particular focus on serials (magazines, newspapers, etc.) from South and Southeast Asia.
A photochrom (colorized image) of Varanasi, a map of Jain cosmology, portraits of a Hindu household on mica, and the Library’s ancient Gandhara scroll are featured in this blog with more South Asian highlights from Library of Congress social media.
