Characteristics of Documentation patterns of Sri Lankan Tamils

Abstract

Sri Lankan Tamils have a rich tradition in art of writing which is prerequisite of any bibliographic activity.Documentation in its widest sense used to address the recording of data, events, information and even knowledge for variety of purposes. It involves work of both compilation and editing.Documentation work related to compilation is categorized into two major divisions as source type and tool type documentation while work related to editing involves with reproduction and creative documentation. This study specially focused only on documentation work related to compilation.In this study an attempt is made to identify some characteristics of the documentation works of Tamils living in and outside of Sri Lanka.Objective of this study is to identify the Documentation patterns of Sri Lankan Tamils. Different kinds of 150 works have been selected on random sampling method for this study. Using both descriptive and exploratory research methods, this study explains the identified characteristics of documentation patterns of Sri Lankan Tamilswith the analysis. Since all the outputs derived from documentation have the reference value and they are treated as secondary information resources which are produced from primary resources, the resources taken into this study has been categorized into two major divisions as Source type documentation (86nos) and Tool Type documentation(64). In the Tool type documentation works, majority of the works (59) are identified as providing merely bibliographical details, 46 works are descriptive in nature and 4 works provides annotation. In source type documentation 24 works comes under full text documentation. Each category has further been classified on the basis of type of documents and most of on them (40 Nos) are focused on books.Involvement of non-librarians in documentation activity is higher than library professionals. Majority works (48nos) were identified as providing information with national scope. Systematic arrangement was given priority in most of the compilations. Quantitative analysis shows near to half of the works were done during 2000-2016. This study could play as an evidence for the historical development of documentation culture of this nation in general and specific ethnic groups in specific.