CIS-A2K/Events/Meghalaya visit for the completion of second phase of NECTAR project

Context

The knowledge about the North-East region of India is underrepresented on Wikimedia projects. Considering this, CIS-A2K has started building partnerships with the institutions in various states from the last two years. In 2022, the first project was launched in Arunachal Pradesh with local partner RIWATCH to document tribal culture and diversity on Wikimedia projects. CIS-A2K collaborated with West Bengal Wikimedians User Group (WBG) for this project.

In February 2023, CIS-A2K in collaboration with Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Sohra, Meghalaya and West Bengal Wikimedians User Group (WBG) have started a project to jointly work on the "Digitization & Documentation of Cultural Heritage and Literature in Meghalaya". This pilot project was partially funded by "The North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach (NECTAR)". The final visit was conducted during 16-21 September for the completion of the project. Tanveer Hasan & Subodh Kulkarni from A2K and Bodhisattwa Mandal from WBG participated in the activities.

Report

CIS-A2K representative Subodh Kulkarni and WBG representative Bodhisattwa Mandal visited Meghalaya during 21-27 February 2023 to start the project activities. The initial meetings with various stakeholders, Wikimedia orientation sessions of partner organisations and training workshop was conducted during this visit. More details can be seen here.

The project review visit was made during 6-11 December 2023. In this visit training sessions for Wikimedian in Residence at RKM Sohra and Jeebon Roy Memorial Library, Shillong were organised. We also explored repositories of rare Khasi literature during this visit. The partnership meeting with Vintage museum in Sohra was conducted. More details can be seen here.

The third and final visit to Meghalaya was done during 16-21 September for the completion of the project. Tanveer Hasan and Subodh Kulkarni from CIS and Bodhisattwa Mandal from WBG participated in various meetings and training programs. The meeting with Jeebon Roy Trustees was held to provide the books for uploading. The review of the digitisation activity was done. In Sohra, the training at Vintage and RKM was conducted. The scanning is in progress at the Vintage museum.

The Jeebon Roy library has digitised almost 15,000 pages of Khasi literature and other books related to the region. A special review committee is formed to select the literary works that can be uploaded and shared to appropriate sites and storage systems on the internet. This committee has approved uploading of 31 books from the digitised repository. These books are uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. In September 2024, we shifted the scanner and laptop to the Vintage museum in Sohra. The digitisation training was conducted in Vintage Museum, Sohra on 17 September. The copyright free books were selected from the metadata. The scanning of 8 books was completed by the coordinator Balari supported by Oliver Gonsalves of Vintage. These books are also uploaded on Commons. The scanning of 35 more books is in progress at Vintage. In the September visit, the digitisation training session was also conducted at Ramakrishna Mission Sohra. Three persons from RKM were trained in scanning and processing. RKM has started selection of public domain books from their library. Once the scanning at Vintage is completed, the scanner & laptop will be shifted to RKM for scanning of their books.

Books Category on Wikimedia Commons - Category:Books digitised under CIS-A2K NECTAR Project

The extensive database of monuments, heritage places, major festivals and dances, major institutions, tourist places etc. has been prepared in excel sheet by Ramakrishna Mission coordinator. The collection and uploading of photographs according to these categories has been started. The photo uploading training was imparted to the persons nominated by RKM in the first and second visit.

Total 337 photos and 25 videos have been uploaded under the following project categories on Wikimedia Commons - Category:Media documentation under CIS-A2K NECTAR Project

The portal has been developed on Wikimedia Commons - Commons:CIS - Meghalaya

Deliverables

A separate gallery for the project has been created on Wikimedia Commons and uploading of 337 photos and 25 videos is completed.
Digitisation of around 20,000 pages is completed. The uploading of 5426 pages, i.e. total 41 books is completed.
Skill training of 24 volunteers in Wikimedia projects is completed. These include 18 persons from Ramakrishna Mission, 2 persons from Jeebon Roy Library and 4 persons from Vintage museum.
Wikimedia project awareness sessions were conducted in Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Shillong; Jeebon Roy Memorial Trust; IIM, Shillong; Ramakrishna Mission Ashram, Sohra and Vintage Museum, Sohra. Around 50 participants were engaged in these sessions.

Challenges

There are no viable and visible digitisation and documentation projects for our initiative to build synergies with. The lack of such initiative makes it difficult for partners to grasp the objectives and adhere to common goals. This can be also considered as a first mover advantage but for such an advantage to be utilised the scale of the project and the investment of resources should also be at scale.

Another major challenge is the lack of engagement from the youth organisations and community leaders from the region. We have observed that there is a lot of interest and energy from youth led organisations and community leaders in language and cultural documentation projects. Despite our efforts we have not been able to rope in youth leaders for this phase of the project. This is a major constraint as experienced cultural and language enthusiasts show interest but also carry preconceived notions, limited skills and a difficult learning curve affecting the pace and overall visibility of the project.

Our recommendation to overcome this challenge is to involve a component of active outreach and present the next phase of the project as a Digital Skill enhancement project and certificates of appreciation can be provided to the participating youth organisations and individuals.

Learnings

The scale and resources of the project were very limited and did not offer us any opportunity to build a robust mechanism of learning and evaluation. For any sustainable initiative, it is important that evaluation is conducted at regular intervals.