Introduction, History, Chapters and Organization Structure

Introduction

Noolaham Foundation is a legally registered (GA 2390), non-profit, non-partisan, secular entity, founded to provide enhanced access to information sources and foster knowledge-based development in Sri Lanka. It maintains an online digital library and archive, facilitates information preservation programs, provides financial assistance and technical guidance for digitization initiatives and actively participates in awareness-raising campaigns. It also co-ordinates a range of fund-raising activities and collaborates with other organizations and individuals.

Noolaham Digital Library (noolaham.org) and Noolaham Multimedia Archive (aavanaham.org) maintained by the Noolaham Foundation serves as Learning Centres incorporating local knowledge. They enable social interaction with a view to achieve constructive social outcomes. The digital library and archive function as a repository for various community institutions and fulfill the information needs of students, researchers, historians, activists and the public.

History

Sri Lankan Tamil speaking communities have transmitted their knowledge through written, oral, visual and artifact sources over millennia. The communities adopted evolving technologies and institutions to support their knowledge preservation and access needs. For example, Sri Lankan Tamil speaking scholars played an instrumental role in collecting, printing, publishing ancient palm-leaf manuscripts in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the late 20th century, they helped establish village libraries and contributed significantly to Tamil library science. As computers and the Internet became widespread in the 1990s, several initiatives were undertaken to adopt those technologies for community' knowledge needs.

In 1998, Project Madurai, following the Project Gutenberg example was initiated to bring Tamil resources online. Project Madurai was the first online Tamil digital library. It engaged volunteers all over the world virtually to coordinate, type, proofread and bring resources online. In 1999, R. PathmanabaIyer began contributing works by Sri Lankan Tamil authors to Project Madurai. He digitized 40 books of which 13 of them were added to Project Madurai after quality review. Parallely, Era Kanagaratnam led International Tamil Archives undertook microfilming of its collections.

In the early 2000s, there were discussions in the Tamil blog/Internet and offline communities to bring Sri Lankan Tamil language works online. Few individuals initiated and experimented digitization initiatives such as Eelanool (2004) and E-Suvadi (2005) of Sri Lankan Tamil books. In 2005, based on the lessons learnt from Ealanool, E-Suvadi, Project Madurai and other initiatives, like-minded individuals initiated the digital library project named Project Noolaham, which emphasized volunteerism, community and openness.

Since 2006, Project Noolaham started accepting donations and in-kind support to accelerate digital preservation efforts. For content management, Project Noolaham initially used a basic HTML website, and then it migrated to Joomla, and is currently using Mediawiki and Islandora. The first collaborative digitization began in 2007 with Women's Education and Research Center (WERC) and Colombo Tamil Sangam. By the end of 2008, the user rate had increased significantly and the server was insufficient for the increased traffic.

In 2008, pioneers of Project Noolaham in consultation with all the stakeholders formed Noolaham Foundation to sustain the digital archiving initiatives in Sri Lanka. In 2010, Noolaham Foundation was formally incorporated as a guaranteed company. In 2011, Noolaham Foundation invited all stakeholders to participate in a strategic planning process and developed its Roadmap 2020 with the emphasis on institutionalization, global transformation, and observance of ethical and professional standards. Initiatives were taken to form global chapters of Noolaham Foundation and streamline its operations.

Chapters

Noolaham Foundation has registered Chapters in Canada, UK and Norway.

In addition, Noolaham Foundation receives key contributors from Australia, US and Switzerland.