With an attempt to conserve, develop and publicise written heritage, India and France on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at digital co-operation and sharing of technical expertise.
Sreya Guha, Joint Secretary (Library) in the Ministry of Culture, and Bruno Racine, President of the National Library of France, signed the MoU on behalf of the respective countries at National Library located in Kolkata.
The agreement will help in digitisation of old manuscripts and documents, Ms Guha said, adding that the Ministry is emphasising on the project of building a National Virtual Library in India which will store and share numerous manuscripts, archives, artworks.
Similarly, France is also keen to avail India’s assistance in sorting out, deciphering and gaining a better insight into their collection of the several thousands of Indian documents. These documents are in different languages like Sanskrit and Tamil and archived in their possession.
“Since the agreement involves Ministry of Culture, it will help in capacity building of libraries, information centres and archives,” Arun Kumar Chakraborty, Director of National Library, Kolkata told The Hindu .
Referring to the project of building a National Virtual Library, Mr Chakraborty said the agreement will help in efficient implementation of the project.
