Now Online: South Asian Ephemera Collection

 

Princeton University Library is now home to a digital collection of openly accessible resources from and about South Asia through its newly created South Asian Ephemera Collection

Curated by South Asian Studies Librarian Ellen Ambrosone, the collection is currently home to more than 1,200 items spanning a breadth of topics and research interests. “The South Asian Ephemera Collection complements Princeton’s already robust Digital Archive of Latin American and Caribbean Ephemera,” Ambrosone said. 

Diamond Jubilee of All India Women's Conference and the birth centenary of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi and Sister R.S. Subbalakshmi

Among the materials included, Ambrosone called attention to a collection of born-digital posters related to the Aurat March (Women’s March) in Lahore, Pakistan. “This material was produced by a community of artist-activists and announced via social media in advance of the march, which takes place on or close to International Women’s Day each year,” Ambrosone said.

This part of the South Asian collection follows Ambrosone’s previous project in conjunction with the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, the University of Edinburgh, and the South Asia Open Archives, which gathered 30 years of Sri Lankan activism in the form of pamphlets, booklets, and serials that capture dissenting voices during political crises. 

Ambrosone hopes that this collection will support interdisciplinary scholarship in the field through a diverse set of resources dating back to the 1940s. 

“Ephemera is usually produced outside of mainstream and scholarly publishing and can be difficult to acquire, yet it often captures marginalized, underrepresented, or dissenting perspectives,” explained Ambrosone. “As such, the ephemera collection contains items of high research value in an open access repository that is available to anyone with internet access.”

The South Asian Ephemera Collection is available now through the Digital Princeton University Library Website.

Published April 6, 2022

Written by: Brandon Johnson, Communications Specialist

Media Contact: Barbara Valenza, Director of Library Communications