Digitization Projects for Cultural Heritage Materials

Abstract

The integration of AI technologies into digital libraries holds significant promise for improving content discovery, accessibility, and usability, of knowledge and information. The goal of this chapter is to present an overview of digitization projects of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu manuscripts in India, with a further exploration of the process and guidelines of digitization and uncovering of best practices for ensuring discovery, accessibility, and long-term digital preservation. Additionally, the study identified the challenges and seeks to provide recommendations for future research in this field. Design/methodology/approach: To investigate diverse objectives, the researchers employed the qualitative case study method. the study employed semi-structured interviews, observation, and content analysis of library records. The findings of the study indicate both the National Mission on Manuscripts and the Punjab Digital Library successfully digitized more than a million pages, encompassing materials from over 100 different institutions across India.