Preserve Asian folk archives

Abstract

“Preserve Asian Folk Archives”, is one of the attempts to preserve and undertake research on folk documents which were hitherto considered as less important and often perished unnoticed. The problem of this research is there is no place to conserve folk documents considered as less important. Our understanding is that these materials are an essential part of our heritage and a representation of the culture and society in which they were produced and circulated. As source material of social history these folk documents would be more important and interesting than „recognized documents‟ housed in conventional archives. We have begun to use cyber space for preserving folk documents, which are endangered. It is indeed impractical to think of preserving all sorts of folk documents circulating in society. Moreover, it is not necessary to preserve everything belonging to the past or present for the sake of the future. Therefore, our intention is to preserve only a meaningful sample of folk documents in the Asian Folk Archives. Document categories for the purposes of this archive is an aspect of this study. Some of the categories are: old photographs, drawings and pictures, old diaries and private letters, notebooks, lecture notes, essays and reports, child art, folk art and calligraphy. The language of the document, place of its origin or content of the document shall not be a concern for us, if they are, morally, ethically and legally suitable for display in our research. This research is being set up in cyber space initially, and will be developed into full fledged archives or several archives in due course. In addition to separate „Public Archives‟, we encourage „in-house Archives‟ in residential and office spaces for folk archival materials. Moreover, we would like to join hands with archives‟ authorities to improve already existing folk collections in their archives and urge them to motivate archiving. This is on-going research and we wish to preserve folk documents for future generations.