The Library’s Asian Division is pleased to announce the digitization of the Hindi and Urdu editions of “Hindostan,” a propaganda newspaper for South Asian prisoners of war (POWs) held in Germany during World War I. The Asian Division is notable for having nearly complete runs of this pro-German newspaper, which was published in Berlin from March 1915 to August 1918. A total of 159 issues of the Hindi and Urdu editions are now freely available in the South Asian Digital Collection.
While staff work is what allows researchers to conduct research, their presence in the Library of Congress is foundational to the creation of the culture at the Library. This blog is an interview with Dan Paterson, a book conservator with the Library of Congress, conducted by Charlotte Giles.
The Asian Division is now accepting applications for its Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship, which supports short-term research visits to the Asian Reading Room at the Library of Congress. This year's application deadline is midnight Sunday, January 12, 2025.
Asian Division 2024 Junior Fellow Akhila Gunturu shares her experience inventorying serials on microfiche in the South Asian Collection. The post highlights the collection’s various uses through an analysis of the advertisements in the Telugu periodical Iṇḍiyā Tuḍē: Vārṣika Sāhitya Sañcika (India Today: Annual Literary Issue).
This post features answers to frequently asked questions about the Southeast Asian collections at the Library of Congress provided by the Library’s Southeast Asian reference librarians. Librarians touch on types of Southeast Asian materials available, who uses the collections, how the Library acquires its holdings, and how to access them.
With 900 freely accessible online items at launch, the South Asian Digital Collection features primary sources on a variety of subjects. This blog looks at the new collection’s items related to colonialism in South Asia, vernacular literature, religion and philosophy, grammar and linguistics, the Rebellion of 1857, and travel accounts by European and American authors.
The Library gathers many stunning examples of the great poetic traditions across the globe, one of them being the Urdu masnavi, "Sihr ul-Bayan," by the Indian poet, Mir Hasan.
This blog post highlights a video recording and resources related to a virtual panel event hosted by the Library of Congress Asian Division entitled "Mangyan Scripts, Literary Heritage, and Collections," which took place on September 20, 2023. The event featured presentations on Mangyan writing and literary culture, as well as Mangyan collections at the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), the Mangyan Heritage Center (Mindoro, Philippines), Newberry Library (Chicago), and Yale Peabody Museum (New Haven). Audience members interacted with speakers in a Question and Answer session following the presentations.
The Asian Division is now accepting applications for its Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship, which supports short-term research visits to the Asian Reading Room at the Library of Congress. This year's application deadline is January 28, 2024.