Urdu Periodicals and Rare Books
Knowledge of the past plays decisive role in the understanding of the present of a society and suggests the ways for its shaping in future. However, generally, a large part of our knowledge of the past has books as our major source while periodicals and newspapers that are more intimate with the changing perceptions, conceptions and emotional reactions in various periods of time have remained almost unused. This is a major vacuum in our knowledge of the past. A shift in knowledge accumulation syndrome towards inclusion of data in periodicals is essential for re-defining of the cultural past of South Asia. We are sure that access to periodical data along with some other vital sources would, to a great extent, help in rectifying current formulations about South Asian cultural history, open a vast area for identification of new themes and topics of research.
Urdu is a major and the only language of South Asia which has vast literature in humanities, social sciences, philosophy, world religions, creative literature, etc., created during the last more than five hundred years by writers belonging to various religious faiths, cultural regions and various schools of thought. It is a big source of data on the cultures, societies, religious traditions, creative literature and thought currents of South Asia, not fully utilized, so far, for research on the region. One major reason for non-utilization of this data is non-availability of research tools, i.e., bibliographies, periodical indexes and digitized books and periodicals, etc. While card- catalogues of books are available at certain libraries there is almost no documented information available on periodicals, even at libraries with major Urdu collections in South Asia.
Urdu Research Centre (URC) is the first research centre in all Asian languages which has taken the first step in this regard by taking up the project of indexing of Urdu periodicals from the 19 th century, onwards. At present, more than twenty thousand indices have been uploaded for free access. Many more are to be uploaded in near future.
A far more significant step being contemplated: making availableto researchers and lovers of Urdu literature the text-images of the indexed entries, as well.
Kindly send feedback regarding the usefulness of this facility. We would, also, invite comments on whether, to meet the required expenditure, we could apply some fee per the age and volume of the text tobe provided.
Wait for our more important announcements.
Directors: Anwar Moazzam | Ashhar Farhan | Contact us: udchyd@gmail.com
Our database currently has 31 journals and 44319 records.