Template:All Projects/Year/2019

Setup Eastern Unit for Noolaham Foundation

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0008	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Kopinath Thillainathan
Project Mentor	Kopinath Thillainathan	Project Locations	Eastern	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Prasad Sockalingam , Sanjayan Selvamanikam and Noolaham Foundation

Documenting creative productions coming from the Eastern region of the island is important to diversify the digitization work done by Noolaham Foundation in line with the Foundation’s objectives. Absorbing the intellectual community based in the East to digitize the documents found in the archives in the region will strengthen Noolaham’s activities. This initiative will help Noolaham de-centralize its tasks. Under this initiative, Noolaham will be able to address some of the difficulties faced by the Jaffna office due to distance between Jaffna and other regions where the activities of Noolaham are carried out.Although efforts were made to expand the activities of Noolaham in the Eastern region, they were not sustained later. In 2016, Noolaham was successful in finding a venue in the Arayampathy Public Library to house its office. However, since in 2017 it became possible for Noolaham to set up a digitization unit at the Eastern University of Sri Lanka, the 2016 initiative was not taken forward. Within a few months, the activities carried out from the unit at the Eastern University were limited to digitization. Later on, when Noolaham started new projects with a focus on documenting villages and documenting vocational arts, we felt the need to establish a regional center in the Easter. Against this background, Noolaham started some initiatives to set up a regional center in Batticaloa.

• Full Report

Digitisation and Cataloguing of Sri Lankan Tamil Palm-Leaf Manuscripts ( EAP 1260)

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0007	Grant Agency / Donors	British Library	Project Owner	Kopinath Thillainathan
Project Mentor	Kopinath Thillainathan	Project Locations	Jaffna and Batticaloa	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project undertaken with the sponsorship provided by the British Library seeks to identify and digitize Ola Manuscripts and recording oral histories related to those Ola Manuscripts. This project was created as part of Noolaham’s objective of documenting, digitizing and disseminating knowledge bases associated with the Tamil speaking communities.

• Full Report

Valiwest PS E-Library Implementation

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0006	Grant Agency / Donors	Valiwest PS	Project Owner	Natkeeran L Kanthan
Project Mentor	Natkeeran L Kanthann	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Valikamam West Pradeshiya Saba has taken steps to implement a digital library project within its main library using its own financial resources and finances received from Asia Foundation. Noolaham Foundation played an important role in preparing the proposal for this project. The Foundation also provides technical advice to the Pradeshiya Saba to implement this project. The activities that are carried out under this project include creating a digital learning platform that will include the activities of the library of the Pradeshiya Saba and collecting, digitizing and uploading knowledge resources that are related to the region.

• Full Report

Digital Infrastructure Setup

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0005	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Natkeeran L Kanthan
Project Mentor	Natkeeran L Kanthan	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

In order to upgrade the digitization and security structures of Noolaham Foundation, a Network-attached Storage equipment was installed in its Jaffna office. Through this initiative, sharing of documents via hard disks was reduced. This initiative also made it possible for Noolaham Foundation to administer its documents remotely. This project was carried out by Noolaham’s volunteers in Canada and Jaffna along with the employees of Noolaham. Previously, copying digitized files on a hard disk was followed in saving, assessing and processing digitized files. However, this method was found time-consuming. It was also found difficult to. these files remotely. As a solution to this challenge, installing a network-attached storage device was installed.

• Full Report

Open Educational Resources 2019

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0004	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Sirakugal Amayam and volunteers for Noolaham Foundation

This project was designed with the objective of documenting educational materials published by schools and educational institutions and making them open access to teachers and students. Beneficiaries could download these documents from the internet. In 2019, this project primarily documented educational resources used in schools for purposes of learning and teaching. It was expected that this project would support the educational endeavors of our communities.Resources related to school education remain scattered all over the internet. An objective of this project was to organize and tag these materials and bring them to a common site in line with the documentation standards followed by Noolaham. Furthermore, this project classified the materials on the basis of grades and subjects. The materials documented under this project included curricula issued by the Department of Education, teacher’s guides, model exam papers, past question papers of the examinations conducted by the Department of Examination and marking schemes. The project would also document previous curricula and educational resources associated with those curricula. This project would be beneficial to those who are interested in conducting research in the areas of education, curriculum studies, education history and pedagogies and methods of learning.

• Full Report

Multimedia Documentation of Religious Monuments

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0003	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Kopinath Thillainathan
Project Mentor	Kopinath Thillainathan	Project Locations	Batticaloa and Jaffna	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham is in the process of compiling a bibliography of documents about and associated with the Tamil speaking communities in Sri Lanka. In its early days, Noolaham was primarily involved in a digital library project. Noolaham later expanded its activities to areas such as documentation and archiving. Our research projects have been designed in such a way that they include research-based documentation and dissemination of knowledge. This project was designed as a pilot project as part of Noolaham’s initiative to document personalities, places and institutions. Important religious institutions based in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country were identified and documented under this project. The main objective of this project was to document religious institutions.

• Full Report

Noolaham Digital Library Collection Development 2019

Project Number	NF/PG/2019/0001	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Kopinath Thillainathan
Project Mentor	Kopinath Thillainathan	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2019
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This is an annual project undertaken by Noolaham Foundation. Under this project, documents lent and gifted to Noolaham by writers and collectors of documents, documents gathered via the various projects conducted by Noolaham, documents that were left out during previous projects conducted by Noolaham and documents that need to be added to the existing collections and multimedia documents are documented. In 2019, 16, 000 documents were uploaded on the websites of Noolaham and Avanaham.

• Full Report