Government to set up National Cultural Audio-Visual Archives at Jodhpur
The Ministry of Culture will be setting up a National Cultural Audio-Visual Archives in Jodhpur in an effort to preserve India’s cultural heritage. The project will involve collaboration between the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) under the Ministry of Culture and the Rupayan Sansthan. A MoU for the pilot project has been signed between the two bodies. The project aims to digitise and make 10,000 hours of digital audio and video accessible by March 31, 2017. A committee of experts in audio-visual archiving will guide the IGNCA in this endeavor
Objective
The project aims to create digital archives in India that are up to international standards. The project will see IGNCA and its partnering and collaborating institutions work to achieve this goal. The project seeks to conserve and preserve India’s archives, and create awareness of their importance and proper upkeep.
The current phase of the project has the following short-time goals:-
- Devise a scheme of standards with respect to digitisation and metadata
- Carry out the actual digitization of material stored in audio-visual form with various government institutions, NGOs and in private collection
- Provide access to approximately 10,000 hours of audio-visual material
- Build capacity in the domain of audio-visual archiving
Collaboration
The IGNCA identified the Jodhpur-based Rupayan Sansthan as a partnering institution. The two bodies will work together to develop a digital audio-visual repository and disseminate content sourced by both bodies from multiple partnering institutions.
Under the project, main focus would be on identifying and preserving the cultural heritage of India available in audio-visual form in governmental and non-governmental institutions across the country through digitisation and making the material accessible in the public domain.
Rupayan Sansthan
Rupayan Sansthan was established by ethno-musicologist and folk artist late Komal Kothari, and folk storyteller and writer, Vijaydan Detha in 1960. Their initial goal in establishing the foundation was to collect folk tales and folk songs to bring out the richness of Rajasthan. The foundation later evolved and was active in community development in Rajasthan.
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Month: Current Affairs - November, 2014