| ID | 172230 |
| Title Proper | From South Asian print to the digital archive |
| Other Title Information | the quest for access and sustainability |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Perkins, C Ryan |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This essay examines the challenges involving the creation of and access to digital content and those faced by smaller nineteenth-century publishers in South Asia. Rather than seeing the digital arena of online publishing as representing a break with preceding periods and technologies, this article argues that, as during the period of print’s expansion in colonial India towards the end of the nineteenth century, the digital arena is at its core an ongoing experiment in which legislation and regulations, readers, publishers, libraries, pirates and business interests continue to play off one another in a metaphorical dance through which the digital publishing landscape is created. For those in late colonial India who sought to enter the world of print and for contemporary efforts to make digitised materials available online alike, the quest for fiscal sustainability has been one of the greatest challenges. By combining an examination of the Urdu writer Abdul Ḥalīm Sharar’s (1860–1926) struggles in publishing the monthly periodical, Dil Gudāz, between 1887 and 1934 with the challenges faced by online archives today, this essay teases out parallels and differences. I argue that the ability of smaller presses to thrive in India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was dependent on a responsive public that accepted its newfound role as patrons, whereas in the present, private donations and grants are the crucial ingredients that can help ensure collaborations achieve their goals. |
| `In' analytical Note | South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Vol. 43, No.3; Jun 2020: p.554-570 |
| Journal Source | South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 2020-06 43, 3 |
| Key Words | Publishing ; Piracy ; South Asia ; Digital Libraries ; Urdu ; Print |