Seminar-Workshop on Asia-Pacific Forum for Library and Achives Management Training
Bangalore, India, UTC- June 1-30, 2004

India-Archives Report
Participant from India

Archives are the gray areas of most of the Indian Libraries. The concept of Archives is well written in papers. When it comes for practice it imposes a big question before us. It is an unique opportunity to attend a valuable course of International standard with distinguished expertise.
Vision:
1.Collecting History of Institutions, Churches, Missionaries and Preserve it.
2. Collecting Important documents and even Oral history and Preserve it.

Hope: Our sincere hope is to gain enough knowledge through this training
And will be able to manage our archives more systematically.

In general very few libraries are having archives and each library archives has its focus on different, special and specific area. Information is stored in Microfilm, Microfiche, Palm leaves and Manuscripts. The documents are preserved using fumigation, chemical treatment and herbal treatment techniques.

The United Theological College, Bangalore, India:

The Ecclesiastical Archives of the United Theological College, Bangalore, was established in 1958 in order to prevent further destruction of Indian Church history
Records. It consists of unpublished documents (letters, minute books etc.) which serve as primary sources for the study of churches, institutions and individual Christians. Also we have several series of printed publications that is reports and journals of missionary societies, rare books, microfilms/microfiches and a palm leaf collection. We also have various private collections of M.M. Thomas, S.J. Samantha, Sadhu Sundar Singh etc. The Archives is well used not only by our students, but also by research scholars from secular universities in India and around the world.

Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute:

Lutheran Heritage Archives started functioning in the year 1989 at the rare end of the Gurukul Martin Luther Library. Dr.K.Rajaratnam, the founding father of the Lutheran Heritage Archives has graciously given space in the ground floor of the new administrative building of Gurukul in 1996. The Lutheran Heritage Archives has been systematically functioning on Archival principles and it has been established for preserving materials on Lutheran Heritage. The significant land mark of the arrival of the two German missionaries Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Pluetschau on 9th July 1706 is the birth of the Protestant Lutheran Mission in India. They were sent by the Danish King Friedrich IV for the missionary work in India. Hence it is called as Halle-Danish Mission or Tranquebar Mission. In July 2006 it has been decided to celeberate the Ter-Centenary Celebration of the beginning of this mission by the Gurukul College, Francke Foundations, Halle, Germany, United Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India, the National Council of Churches in India and other institutions. It has been decided to publish five volumes including different topics and perspectives coming out of fresh research work during this celebrations. This is the vision of our Archives. The L.H.Archives contains original records of our college, records related to the Lutheran churches in India, mission related documents, old research valuable books, theses, microfilms, microfiches, CD-Rom, a few palm leaf manuscripts, flatgrafic materials, private collections and so on. It is providing materials not only for the students of our College but also for the scholars doing research in and around India. The L.H.Archives is developing as a research institute with firm commitment to serve the Indian Church by preserving its memories and promoting research.

Orthodox Theological Seminary:

The seminary of the Malankara Orthodox church was founded by St. Thomas, the Apostle in A.D. 52. It is the first Orthodox Christian School of Theology in Asia and the oldest seminary other than Catholic Seminary in India, was founded in 1815. Seminary Archives consists of microfilms, microfiches, audio cassettes, video cassettes, slides, CD-Roms, rare books in English, Malayalam and Syriac languages, documents of palm leaves, papyrus, vellum,and Birch bark, manuscripts of prayer books, bible portions, liturgical texts, Malayalam translations etc.,. Further more it have old journals since 1892, historical records of seminary, church and church leaders. A good collection of photographs,icons and stamps are there.

Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary,Madurai.

TTS is formed in 1969 at Madurai in Tamilnadu. Our Seminary having library its total collection is 60000 Volume books and in 1986 we established archives department. Archives with special focus on “Indian Church History Archives date back from 16th century. Herbal preservation technique is practiced.

Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, Maharashtra:

The archives holdings focus is on the seminary records ,papers, documents, and other materials of historical value generated by related to the Seminary and individuals, past and present affiliated with it. The holdings span the entire history of the Seminary and represent virtually every aspect of Seminary life including extensive photographic archives and audio-visual archives . The UBS publication of faculty and students are housed.

Southern Asian Bible college, Bangalore
Methodist bible seminary, Gujarat
Allahabat Bible Seminary
Aizwal theological college Mizoram
Are yet to establish an archive, but having immediate plan to establish one.

Lady Doak College, Madurai:

LDC is an arts and science college. Its quite unusual to find an archives at any graduate colleges. But we have established one quite recently. Collection is focused on the History of the college and the Biography of Miss. Katie Wilcox.

Other Archives:

Indian National Archives and Every state archives are well established and well maintained. The documents and microfiched and micro filmed and well preserved. Tanjore Tamil University, archives has manuscripts from 400 BC. Government archives are well preserved using various techniques.

We aspire to do many things but all of our progress is curtailed because of fund.