Complete collections of Museum of Ministry of Culture and ASI to be digitized over the next 3-4 years

Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism, Shri Shripad Naik launches the National Portal for Museums

Shri Shripad Naik, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Culture and Tourism today (21.10.2014) launched the National Portal for Museums www.museumsofindia.gov.in in a brief but impressive function held in Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi. The Ministry of Culture has decided to digitize the collections of all the Museums under its control as well as the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)  In the first phase of this project, the following 10 Museums under the Ministry of Culture have been digitized: 1.      Indian Museum, Kolkata 2.      Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata 3.      National Museum, New Delhi 4.      Allahabad Museum 5.      Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad 6.      National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 7.      National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai 8.      National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru 9.      Archaeological Museum, Nagarjunakonda 10.  Archaeological Museum, Goa. The web portal (www.museumsofindia.gov.in) displays a part of the digitized collections of these 10 leading museums. More than 11,000 art objects have been incorporated in the Digital Repository. Apart from this a database of more than 2 lakh antiquities has also been prepared by the National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities (NMMA.) It is planned to digitize the complete collections of all the Museums of Ministry of Culture and ASI in a phased manner over a period of next 3-4 years and make the same available over the internet for online viewing. This digitization endeavour of the Ministry of Culture and making available of the collections of all its Museums on a single and uniform platform over the internet is a unique experiment being done on such a large scale worldwide. This will greatly help the scholars, school students as well as general viewers by providing them glimpses of the rich collections of our museums, hitherto hidden from the public eye. This move is also expected to give an impetus to tourism in the country and to encourage more and more people to visit the Museums. Digitization is being implemented by using the Jatan Collection Management Software. During the year 2014-15, the Jatan software is proposed to be implemented in 7 additional museums of the ASI as given below: 1.      Ratnagiri Museum 2.      Halebidu Museum 3.      Lothal Museum 4.      Mattancherry Palace, Cochin 5.      Fort St. George Museum, Chennai 6.      Bodhgaya Museum 7.      Sarnath Museum The software and the web portal have been developed for the Ministry of Culture by Centre of Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune. Courtesy: pib.nic.in