Journal of Information and Knowledge (Formerly SRELS Journal of Information Management)

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Indigenous Cultural-Heritage Resource Management System : Designing an Open-Source Based Technical Framework


Affiliations
1 Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kalyani, Kalyani − 741235, West Bengal, India
     

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This paper reports the development of a digital indigenous or aboriginal cultural heritage archive prototype to understand more specifically how to manage cultural heritage resources for local needs, for traditional and indigenous communities, and in libraries, archives, and museums as they seek to manage, preserve, strengthen, develop, and reuse these resources. The tribes who are the earliest inhabitants of India are economically and socially the least advanced, as they live in isolated and self-contained groups, and are distinct culturally and ethnically from mainstream societies. Historically, colonization, ignorance of mainstream societies, etc., have dominated thousands of indigenous cultures that have ceased to exist or have been marginalized to the brink of extinction. This exploratory study is an attempt to find the tools and techniques that can assist in building an information system for indigenous culture. It considers the need for integration of such a system with a library retrieval system, and the prototype includes the indigenous cultural resources of the Rabha tribe of North-East India to illustrate the idea and suggest a prototype based on open source software and open standards.

Keywords

Cultural Heritage, Digital Archive, Indigenous Cultural, Mukurtu, Resource Management, Rabha Tribe, Tribal Culture.
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About The Authors

Anirban Dutta
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kalyani, Kalyani − 741235, West Bengal
India

Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kalyani, Kalyani − 741235, West Bengal
India


Notifications

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  • Indigenous Cultural-Heritage Resource Management System : Designing an Open-Source Based Technical Framework

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Authors

Anirban Dutta
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kalyani, Kalyani − 741235, West Bengal, India
Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kalyani, Kalyani − 741235, West Bengal, India

Abstract


This paper reports the development of a digital indigenous or aboriginal cultural heritage archive prototype to understand more specifically how to manage cultural heritage resources for local needs, for traditional and indigenous communities, and in libraries, archives, and museums as they seek to manage, preserve, strengthen, develop, and reuse these resources. The tribes who are the earliest inhabitants of India are economically and socially the least advanced, as they live in isolated and self-contained groups, and are distinct culturally and ethnically from mainstream societies. Historically, colonization, ignorance of mainstream societies, etc., have dominated thousands of indigenous cultures that have ceased to exist or have been marginalized to the brink of extinction. This exploratory study is an attempt to find the tools and techniques that can assist in building an information system for indigenous culture. It considers the need for integration of such a system with a library retrieval system, and the prototype includes the indigenous cultural resources of the Rabha tribe of North-East India to illustrate the idea and suggest a prototype based on open source software and open standards.

Keywords


Cultural Heritage, Digital Archive, Indigenous Cultural, Mukurtu, Resource Management, Rabha Tribe, Tribal Culture.

References