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Another pen-and-brush-drawing illustrating an Indian myth. |
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In course of the next five years, the Satyajit Ray Society was to undertake one of the most extensive projects on paper conservation ever undertaken. Nearly seventy thousand pages of documents were subjected to an initial inventory, followed by expert cleaning and conservation processes carried out by trained professionals. The entire project was supervised by Mike Wheeler, Senior Conservator (Paper Preservation) at the Victoria-Albert Museum, London. The material thus treated was then scanned at a predetermined resolution and stored on archival-quality CDs. |
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The project, which was initially estimated to last three years, had to be extended for two more, and is yet to draw to a conclusion, not out of any inefficiency on part of the staff but, because of the extreme fragility of the material, and the complicated nature of the processes, involved. |
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Mike Wheeler, specialist in paper preservation |
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The digitization project had been initiated with a view to dissemination. The Society has in fact been able to set up a Satyajit Ray Study Centre in Kolkata in collaboration with a city-based institute. A state-of-the-art computer terminal was set up with the support of one of the Society's members, Anita Agnihotri. A significant amount of Ray's work is available there on CDs for public viewing. A library on Ray further complements it. |
