Let's together create a Digital Archive of Nepal
$456
Raised
7
Donations
$2,500
Goal
[Also raised $454 from the GoFundMe Campaign ]
Archive Nepal is a non profit corporation incorporated in New York, USA with 501c3 tax exempt status . Your donation is tax deductible as per your local regulations.
We will email you a donation receipt. Please keep this, as it is your official record to claim this donation as a tax deduction.
We will email you a donation receipt. Please keep this, as it is your official record to claim this donation as a tax deduction.
OUR STORY:
As with any idea, it started with frustration and then a realization. It was June 2020 and Nepal’s parliament had just approved a new map that included Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani. India immediately rejected the new map claiming it is not based on historical facts or evidence and an amature historian in me started scouring the web to find any evidence to validate our claim. I did find some maps dating before and after the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 not in Nepal but in the British Library and were not digitized. As the whole saga kept drawing on publicly, it also kept gnawing at me. By then I had spent 8 of my 10 years in the US as a Project Manager and a Digital Archivist at Marist College, NY, USA managing a number of digitization and archival projects. And I saw that my field and expertise in Archiving was at the core of this dispute. I kept wishing that if only we could research and digitize these relevant documents in the UK and the maps that should be in our own possession and make them publicly available it would just validate the new map. The fact that the authorities were not doing so and that we do not actually have a national digital archive like Digital Public Library of America or Europeana that can provide access to such historic documents became the source of my frustration.
As a Digital Archivist I had come to realize the value of such a national archive. It is a source of a nation's collective memory and plays a vital role in preserving and promoting one’s history and culture especially in today’s digital age. As I kept asking ‘Why Nepal does not have a national digital archive?’ As usual I blamed this on our government's lack of interest, funds and corruption. But as John F. Kennedy so memorably said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’, I came to realize that I was asking the wrong question. Rather than asking ‘Why Nepal does not have a national digital archive?’, I started to ask ‘How can I create a national digital archive for Nepal?’. With my experience in software development and in managing digitization and archiving projects, I had both the technical and business know-how to create such a digital archive. So with the help and support of my family, friends and some of my savings I decided to start Archive Nepal as a non profit in the US with the mission to ‘encourage the understanding of Nepal’s rich history and culture by curating, digitizing, and improving accessibility to digital resources.’ Again I was driven by another of John F. Kennedy’s quotes, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’
At Archive Nepal we are taking baby steps in the field of Digitization and Archiving which are still very nascent fields in Nepal lacking funds and technical expertise. Most of the digitization of Nepali historical materials have primarily been carried out by foreign universities and museums and as such distributed in multiple websites, making it even harder for researchers and users to access. We need your support to lower that barrier and to help develop Archive Nepal as a valuable national digital resource that is always FREELY available for anyone to research and learn about Nepal. Currently you can find around 3000 digitized materials that includes images, objects, videos, books, documents and audios from 18 different national and international sources such as The British Museum, Art institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. With your support we will continue to build our collection.
Your valuable donation will be used to:
1. Support our site and pay for the servers.
2. Continue our search to index digitized historic materials available on the web.
3. Work with organizations in Nepal to host their collections in Archive Nepal.
4. Support digitization projects.
5. Continue to develop new features, resources and tools to make Archive Nepal more user friendly.
Our goal at Archive Nepal is to DISCOVER NEPAL THROUGH ITS HISTORY and to preserve it in this digital era. And we invite you to join in our journey.
Thank you for reading our story. We appreciate any help or contribution, no matter how big or small! If possible, please share our campaign link on social media and with your friends. We will keep you posted on the use of funds and our progress going forward.
As with any idea, it started with frustration and then a realization. It was June 2020 and Nepal’s parliament had just approved a new map that included Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani. India immediately rejected the new map claiming it is not based on historical facts or evidence and an amature historian in me started scouring the web to find any evidence to validate our claim. I did find some maps dating before and after the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 not in Nepal but in the British Library and were not digitized. As the whole saga kept drawing on publicly, it also kept gnawing at me. By then I had spent 8 of my 10 years in the US as a Project Manager and a Digital Archivist at Marist College, NY, USA managing a number of digitization and archival projects. And I saw that my field and expertise in Archiving was at the core of this dispute. I kept wishing that if only we could research and digitize these relevant documents in the UK and the maps that should be in our own possession and make them publicly available it would just validate the new map. The fact that the authorities were not doing so and that we do not actually have a national digital archive like Digital Public Library of America or Europeana that can provide access to such historic documents became the source of my frustration.
As a Digital Archivist I had come to realize the value of such a national archive. It is a source of a nation's collective memory and plays a vital role in preserving and promoting one’s history and culture especially in today’s digital age. As I kept asking ‘Why Nepal does not have a national digital archive?’ As usual I blamed this on our government's lack of interest, funds and corruption. But as John F. Kennedy so memorably said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’, I came to realize that I was asking the wrong question. Rather than asking ‘Why Nepal does not have a national digital archive?’, I started to ask ‘How can I create a national digital archive for Nepal?’. With my experience in software development and in managing digitization and archiving projects, I had both the technical and business know-how to create such a digital archive. So with the help and support of my family, friends and some of my savings I decided to start Archive Nepal as a non profit in the US with the mission to ‘encourage the understanding of Nepal’s rich history and culture by curating, digitizing, and improving accessibility to digital resources.’ Again I was driven by another of John F. Kennedy’s quotes, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’
At Archive Nepal we are taking baby steps in the field of Digitization and Archiving which are still very nascent fields in Nepal lacking funds and technical expertise. Most of the digitization of Nepali historical materials have primarily been carried out by foreign universities and museums and as such distributed in multiple websites, making it even harder for researchers and users to access. We need your support to lower that barrier and to help develop Archive Nepal as a valuable national digital resource that is always FREELY available for anyone to research and learn about Nepal. Currently you can find around 3000 digitized materials that includes images, objects, videos, books, documents and audios from 18 different national and international sources such as The British Museum, Art institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. With your support we will continue to build our collection.
Your valuable donation will be used to:
1. Support our site and pay for the servers.
2. Continue our search to index digitized historic materials available on the web.
3. Work with organizations in Nepal to host their collections in Archive Nepal.
4. Support digitization projects.
5. Continue to develop new features, resources and tools to make Archive Nepal more user friendly.
Our goal at Archive Nepal is to DISCOVER NEPAL THROUGH ITS HISTORY and to preserve it in this digital era. And we invite you to join in our journey.
Thank you for reading our story. We appreciate any help or contribution, no matter how big or small! If possible, please share our campaign link on social media and with your friends. We will keep you posted on the use of funds and our progress going forward.
Our donors
S
Shalu
donated
$70
S
Sriju
Great idea- keep up the good work!