PANAJI
Whether it s for sourcing information of the past or for information for the college assignment. With the department s plan of digitizing the entire archive and making it available to people, employees have found it easier to provide the information. Since the process of digitization began in 2013, library officials have managed to scan and preserve over 300 books and are in the process of converting more into the digital format. Half of these have also undergone preservation techniques while plans are also underway for special techniques to preserve documents that are extremely fragile and easily susceptible to moisture. “The work initially began in 2013 but was done as and when we had the time. Today we are more regular with scanning and fixing the image and to preserve the books and documents,” said Maria Ana Paiva, librarian. The books comprise of books in Portuguese, Konkani, Marathi and English as well as Portuguese gazettes and newspapers. A total of 136 Portuguese books, 33 gazettes from 1837 to 1864 and 173 books in Marathi and English have been digitized, and half of these have been preserved with processes including fumigation using para de chloro benzene crystals to remove insects and other microscopic organisms followed by microfilming.
