In a bid to safeguard and promote the rich literary heritage of Assam, the Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language Art & Culture (ABILAC) has joined forces with the Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF) in a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The agreement aims to digitize and preserve a trove of rare books housed within the ABILAC library situated at Rajaduar, North Guwahati.
The NTF, known for its pioneering initiative "Digitizing Assam," has been dedicated to the preservation of Assamese literary works published between 1813 and 1970. Leveraging cutting-edge digital scanning technologies, the foundation has previously made invaluable and scarce publications accessible to the wider public through its online platform.
Under this newly forged partnership, spanning the next 12 months, ABILAC and NTF will collaborate closely to expand the repository of rare Assamese books and journals. The digitized content, are already in the open source public domain and are freely accessible to everyone through the dedicated portal www.assamarchive.org.
Representing ABILAC, Dr. Dilip Kumar Kalita, the Director, expressed enthusiasm for the collaboration, recognizing the immense value it brings in preserving Assam's cultural legacy. The signing of the MoU took place in the presence of Mrinal Talukdar from NTF, alongside ABILAC's Associate Professor Dr. Karuna Kanta Kakati and Finance and Administrative Officer Bhupendra Nath Kalita.
This significant partnership marks a pivotal step toward ensuring the conservation and widespread accessibility of rare Assamese literary treasures, fostering a deeper appreciation for the state's rich cultural heritage among present and future generations.
