Separate digital library to be launched for blind, deaf & dumb in Bamu

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Knowledge Resource Centre (KRC) of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University will launch a separate digital library for blind, deaf and dumb students. The library will be equipped with braille and other required systems.

It may be noted that hundreds of students from the different departments of the campus visit KRC daily for books, magazines and textbooks for their undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral research. The library also has a separate digital library for the teachers, students and researchers who use it for study and research.

However, the blind students cannot currently use the digital library at KRC, which has a rich collection of 4 lakh books, journals, photographs, magazines, rare books and manuscripts. The cost of the initiative is Rs 20 lakh to 25 lakh.

Talking to this newspaper, KRC director and dean Dr Vaishali Khaparde said that a proposal was submitted to the administration recently for setting up a separate digital library for blind, deaf and dumb students, so that, they should not be deprived of the availability of technology.

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Digitisation of rare Manuscripts to be done

The KRC director said that they have also planned the digitisation of Manuscripts to avoid any damage to the collections and make them accessible for researchers from the local to global level.

She said that a proposal was submitted to the university administration, which is pursuing the funding proposal on the government level.

The KRC has a rare manuscript section with a 3414 collection of rare manuscripts which were written in different languages, on different subjects and from different periods. She said, “A bunch of 500 manuscripts have a collection of 87,567 pages. This means that 4314 manuscripts are a collection of 7,00536 pages. However, more than 200 manuscripts of ‘Devi Strotas’ were written by Raje Shamraj Rajwant Bahadur, Hyderabad.

The manuscripts are mainly related to the Warkari and Mahanubhav Pantha. All the manuscripts available at the KRC was written between 1400 and 2000 centuries, which are available in handwritten form. Dr Vaishali Khaparde said that manuscripts are sources for the culture and scientific heritage.

On the social importance of manuscripts, she said,“ collection of manuscripts in prose and verses. It included Dnyaneshwari, Tukaram’s Abhag Gatha, Pt Mhaimbhat’s the image of society of the 12th century, which shows the reflection of community in Leela Charitra.”