Preservation and accessibility of the multimedia resources of the Central University of Tibetan Studies Oleg Rinchinov, PhD, research fellow Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Ulan-Ude, Russia
Central University of Tibetan Studies Founded in 1967 Situated in Sarnath village, Varanasi city, Uttar-Pradesh, India Has a status of Deemed university with governmental funding
Multimedia sector of CUTS’s Shantarakshita library More than 1000 titles of digital multimedia sources The earliest materials date back to 1960-s The latest recordings available at our Center were made in December, 2009
Aims of the IMBTS-CUTS joint project Expansion of the research facilities for Russian Tibetology, especially in aspect of contemporary study IT-aided preservation and granting worldwide accessibility for the materials of collection
Left: previous storage conditions of multimedia sources at the CUTS Bottom: workplace during the implementation of the project
Quantitative parameters of the project 460 titles have been copied general data volume is nearly 2 terabytes, more than 2000 hours of recordings
Data formats Video (DVD, VideoCD, etc.) 90,87% Audio (Audio CD, MP3) 6,52% Digital documents (PDF, DOC, PPT, etc.) 1,52%
Main subject categories Lectures and sermons of HH Dalai Lama and other prominent Tibetan Buddhist teachers; Different materials concerning governmental and parliamentary activities, including public speeches of Samdong Rinpoche - the Prime Minister of Tibetan government in exile; News releases of Tibetan information agencies;
Main subject categories (finish) Art performances; Scholastic disputes and discussions, other educational resources; Academic presentations and discussions on different aspects of Buddhist and Tibetan studies made by international scholars; Historical chronicles and anthropological materials concerning Tibet, Tibetan refugees in India and Himalayan people.
Dalai Lama’s lecture
Religious event
Art performance
Basic description scheme for electronic catalogue inventory code Tibetan / English (Hindu) title Russian translation of the title author / main character publisher date of recording date of issue data format duration metadata
Metadata based on tagging flexible und unrestricted, user generated allows multi-parametrical description of each item
«Tag cloud» for the described part of the collection Lectures, presentations (98)News releases (72) Teachings of the HH Dalai Lama (54) Philosophy and ethics (41)Religious life (31) Political activities (25)Anthropology (25) Medicine (20)Scholarly evants (18) Religious teachings (16)Natural sciences (15) Literature, poetry (14)Educational materials (10) Education (9)History and Historiography (9) IT (8)Historical video chronicles (8) Art performances, festivals (7) Ayurveda (7)Tibetan medicine (7) Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (6) Scholarly disputes (6) Religious forums (3)
Steps to accessibility Electronic catalogue publication at Producing and distribution of short demos (min. 3 – 5) Gradual granting of full access to the multimedia resources Annotation, making Russian/English subtitles and translation of selected items Utilization of the acquired materials for own video production (documentary, visual anthropology, etc.)
Мероприятия Укомплектована высокопроизводительная серверная установка: –сервер 2 x Intel Xeon –дисковый массив 12 Тб Создана видеолаборатория Инициированы проекты по созданию собственных мультимедийных ресурсов (экспедиция в Тибет)