2023:Entertainment/The Volunteer Archivists

You are invited to join the screening of The Volunteer Archivists, a 2022 film by Subhashish Panigrahi, this Friday at Wikimania.

Date and Time

18 August (Friday) from 1:40 PM to 2:00 PM (5:40 - 6:00 UTC)

Venue

Plenary, Halls 401/402 Suntec Convention Centre

Two hundred years of printed publications in India's Odia language are dying of collective negligence. A handful of volunteer science enthusiasts must fight against all odds, including legal battles, to digitally-archive crumbling books.

“A multilayered narrative with numberless actors retracing over four decades of local efforts to collect written material, preserve it and make it accessible to the community of users and now to the larger public.”
— MOHOMODOU HOUSSOUBA, CENTRE FOR AFRICAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF BASEL, SWITZERLAND

ABOUT

Srujanika was founded as a volunteer-led collective by scientist couple Nikhil Mohan Pattnaik and Puspashree Pattnaik in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, in 1983. Since 2006, its workforce of only a handful of volunteers has managed to collect, process, and archive 10,000 volumes of books, magazines, and other periodicals and dictionaries published in the Odia language since the early 1800s. These publications are hosted on their portal—Odia Bibhaba. A large portion of the books they have archived was beyond conservation and, in most cases, did not have anyone to conserve them. But what really led to this massive project? This Open Culture documentary film accounts for the ups and downs of the movements Srujanika led and their constant struggle to document Odisha’s utterly neglected printing history.

“A wonderful testament to the power of citizen archivists.”
— CARL MALAMUD, PUBLIC RESOURCE

TRAILER

The Volunteer Archivists—Trailer

CREDIT

STARRING PUSPASHREE PATTNAIK / NIKHIL MOHAN PATTNAIK / PADMAJA / JEEBAN KUMAR PANDA
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER SUBHASHISH PANIGRAHI GRATITUDE TO SRUJANIKA
OFFICIAL SITE • FULL FILM ARCHIVED ON INTERNET ARCHIVE
A COPY OF THIS FILM IS STORED PHYSICALLY AT THE U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
2023 © SUBHASHISH PANIGRAHI
THIS FILM IS RELEASED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION SHAREALIKE (CC BY-SA 4.0) LICENSE.
COPYING, REMIX AND REDISTRIBUTION WITH ATTRIBUTION ARE ENCOURAGED.