Purpose:
Monastery libraries have, for centuries, been the hub of religious education and research. They house collections that are unique and even rare and have been useful to students of religion ...as well as to members of the public. Some, along with the monasteries to which they are attached, even serve as tourist attractions, being as they are ancient relics with rich culture and history. The Tawang Monastery, in Arunachal Pradesh, India, is one such monastery whose libraries are unique and valuable. This paper reports results of a study on the collection in the two libraries of Tawang Monastery which not only found that they are among the best in terms of format, variety and value but also discovered shortcomings like shortage in staff and space which need to be addressed at the earliest.
Design/methodology/approach
For this research, case study method was used by the researchers. The tools used for data collection were questionnaire and interview. This is because they were found to be easier and convenient methods to carry out this research. Apart from that, observation method was also carried out throughout the research period. Besides these field work research methods, literature review was also carried out to gather mostly historical and some background information about the monastic libraries in India. Internet searching was also carried out to find out other relevant information.
Findings
This study provides an enumerative account of collection development in the Tawang monastery libraries. During the study, certain pitfalls were noted. First, the ancient Parkhang library building is in a very precarious state of existence. In fact, the library building was undergoing renovation during the period of this study. Due to this very reason also, it’s collection of Kanjur and Tanjur religious texts have not been subjected to any preservation methods, although it is of utmost necessity.
Research limitations/implications
During this particular period of study the ancient Parkhang library was undergoing the process of building renovation. In fact, the whole library building was deserted as a result, and was in topsy-turvy condition. The tour of the library hall was given, for whatever it was worth by the librarian himself, during which some photographs were taken. Hence, most of the data collection was possible only due to the dedicated cooperation of the monks and a few learned teaching staff of the monastery school. Much relevant information was collected through personal interviews, apart from the questionnaire sets. On the other hand, no such hindrance was faced for the data collection from the school library.
Originality/value
This study, to an extent, shows that the collection development in the Tawang monastery libraries (especially Parkhang library) is a very vital and important asset, both for the state of Arunachal Pradesh and for India as well. It is the first full-fledged study on collection development in the Tawang Monastery libraries, covering all aspects of the topic at hand, and can serve as a precedent to other such studies.
The inventory lists of private library collections may be counted among the most significant sources for the study of the history of books in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. These inventories ...provide a true picture of the reading material used in a given historical period and reveal their owners’ spiritual preoccupations as well as those of their contemporaries. Many books listed in the inventories had disappeared from the collections over time, so the inventories remain the sole indicators helping us to reconstruct the spiritual life of the different social environments. The inventories deserve to be treated with exceptional reverence by the book historians.Example used by the author to show the type of information that might be learned from the inventory of a private library is the inventory of books that Nikola Pavlov de Gondola of Dubrovnik gave as a gift, in 1469, to the Benedictine monastery of St. Mary’s on the island of Lokrum near Dubrovnik. The inventory list comprises sixteen titles; among them are two milestones, Boccaccio’s The Decameron and Genealogies of the Gentile Gods. The two are the oldest specimens of these books ever to be discovered in Croatia. Using the standard methodology for book inventory analysis, developed by the so-called ‘middle generation’ of book historians, the author first establishes which book the inventory entry refers to and, then, he supplies information on the book. Finally, for the most important books, he sketches for the reader a wider context of the book ownership and use. The author also stresses the importance of the numerous private library inventories kept in the archives of Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar, etc. He argues that the publication and an in-depth analysis of the surviving inventories would supply valuable information not only on the books bought and read by their owners but also on the intellectual and cultural preoccupations of the social environments (towns) in which the owners lived.
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In this paper, the authors explore scientific and cultural activities of archimandrites Hristifor Mihajlovic and Leontije Ninkovic, the followers of Vuk Karadzic from Herzegovina, who were ...acknowledged researchers of Serbian cultural tradition during Austro-Hungarian rule (1878-1918). They have especially contributed to the study of written and printed Cyrillic materials. From the aspect of literary science, this paper explores both bibliographical and literary-historical significance of their works. From the linguistic perspective, the authors have partially noted some basic orthographic and phonetic characteristics of the inscriptions on Srbulje from the libraries of Dobricevo and Zavala.
Poticaj za pisanje rada autoru je dalo objavljivanje knjige Kanonske vizitacije Zagrebačke nadbiskupije koju je uredio Andrija Lukinović. U knjizi je uočljivo da su pohoditelji župa u arhiđakonatu ...Gora zapisivali i podatke o župničkim knjižnicama, s popisom knjiga koje posjeduje neka župa (inventarium librorum). Takvi su popisi zanimljivi iz tri razloga: a) omogućuju uvid u to koje su hrvatske knjige, osobito propovjedničke, bile popularnije, dakle koje su se češće pojavljivale u zapisnicima kanonskih vizitacija
u rubrici inventarium librorum; b) omogućuju donošenje zaključaka o publici kojoj se župnik u propovijedima obraćao, pripremajući se za propovijedanje pomoću onih hrvatskih propovjedničkih knjiga koje su najčešće bile na policama župničkih knjižnica; c) omogućuju provjeravanje bibliografskih podataka o hrvatskim knjigama za koje nemamo pouzdanih podataka da su zaista i tiskane, dakle da ih je neka knjižnica imala u svome fondu.
Pri istraživanju knjiga bilježenih u zapisnicima kanonskih vizitacija Zagrebačke nadbiskupije korištena je induktivna metoda: odabirom naslova koji su se najčešće pojavljivali u popisima knjiga zaključivalo se o razlozima veće zastupljenosti pojedinih naslova, odnosno o vjerničkoj publici kojoj se župnik u svojim propovijedima obraćao.
Zapisnici kanonskih vizitacija čuvaju se u Nadbiskupskom i kaptolskom arhivu u Zagrebu (NKAZ, KV) i uglavnom nisu objavljeni. Tako zamišljeno istraživanje dovelo je do zaključaka da je vjernička publika kojoj se obraćao župnik propovjednik, a koji se za propovijedanje pripremao na temelju knjiga koje je imao u župničkoj knjižnici, bila bolje upućena u pitanja vjere i općenito bolje obrazovana nego što se to danas misli.
Istraživanje je bilo ograničeno fizičkom nemogućnošću autora članka da samostalno pregleda sve zapisnike kanonskih vizitacija svih arhiđakonata Zagrebačke nadbiskupije, što bi zahtijevalo timski rad. 10 Željko Vegh, Zapisnici kanonskih vizitacija Zagrebačke nadbiskupije kao izvor podataka za povijest hrvatske tiskane knjige, Libellarium, 1, 1(2008): 9 - 25 Praktična je vrijednost istraživanja popisa knjiga koje su vizitatori bilježili pri svojim pohodima u župe Zagrebačke nadbiskupije otkrivanje recepcije djela pojedinih hrvatskih pisaca u 18. stoljeću, potom otkrivanje podataka o naobrazbi župnikâ i obrazovanosti stanovništva koje je živjelo na području Zagrebačke nadbiskupije te, naposljetku, o utjecaju Katoličke crkve na obrazovanost stanovništva. Istraživanje je omogućilo i potvrđivanje bibliografskih navoda o postojanju nekih hrvatskih tiskanih knjiga.
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