Hyderabad: The Telangana State Archives and Research Institute will soon launch a digital library, making it possible for students, researchers, historians, and history aficionados to easily access its archives.
The digital library will initially make available the former Hyderabad Secretariat files from 1896, departmental records of GAD, Home, and from 1890 to 1947, as well as Persian archives including jagirs from 1880-1880, land grant transactions, and Army records belonging to the Nizam period. After that, the digital library will house a startling 1.55 lakh historical documents from the Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb eras, a report by Telangana Today said.
In the beginning, the Institute will make archive content available in the digital library as reference material, and upon request, a photocopy of the material will be provided with user fees. The Institute is developing a new website specifically for this endeavour. The user ID and password are required to access the digital library which will be provided through registration.
The Institute had already started digitising the records. Each record is given a catalogue after it has been digitally transformed, and the catalogue is stored in the digital library. Over 25,000 records have been successfully digitalized by the Institute so far.
The Bahmani Sultanate’s second-oldest record in the nation, a Farman of Firoz Shah Bahmani from the 14th century, has been preserved at the Institute together with over 43 million other documents. The Farman was handwritten in Persian and dates back to May 14, 1406 AD. It was intended to gift land as “inam” to Moulana Muhammad Qazi.
Ninety per cent of the 43 million documents were written in Persian and Urdu. The Institute will launch its renovated archive museum in a few months. Along with 200 other significant papers, the museum will display the second-oldest document ever created in the nation.
