Google is planning on making 800,000 books and manuscripts at the University of Mysore, in Karnataka, India. Some of the documents are written on palm leaves, and some on paper. Among them is India’s first political treatise, the Arthasastra, dating from the fourth century B.C. by Kautilya, that are lying at the University of Mysore, in Karnataka, will be digitized by Google, the world’s leading Internet search engine.
Written both on papers and palm leaves, there are around 100,000 manuscripts in our library, some dating back to the eighth century.
J. Shashidhara Prasad, vice-chancellor of the university, said the digitization project would help restore and preserve this cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge, according to the news service.
Written either in Sanskrit or Kannada, depending upon the exclusivity of the materials, these resources of knowledge would be patented before making them available on the public domain, he said.
Many manuscripts on ayurveda, mathematics, medicine, science, astrology and economy including Arthasastra and several paper manuscripts of the Wodeyar dynasty of Mysore will be digitized first, he added.
The Mysore project joins a growing list of Google scanning efforts overseas. Just last week the search-engine company recruited its first French-language library, the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne, Switzerland. The University of Oxford, in England, is among the five institutions involved in the company’s original library-scanning endeavor.
Google has offered to digitize theses manuscripts as well as 700,000 other books free of cost. Google India chief (Eric Schmidt) had already interacted with us and is ready to provide us expertise, software and even manpower, Prasad said, adding that they have also received some financial assistance from the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the digitization work.
Asked why Google is interested to do the job for free, the vice chancellor said the company would get free link for these materials once the necessary patent right is done.
Mysore University, an enduring symbol in the sphere of higher education in India, was founded by the then Maharaja of Mysore Sri Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV in 1916.
However, the vice chancellor did not spell out the exact timeframe of the project. “It is a tough job and we could not spell an exact timing of its completion.
Elaborating on its utility, Prasad said they would allow students, scholars and historians from all over the country to access the knowledge base.