The SAOA collection is freely available at: https://www.jstor.org/site/saoa/ [1]
The South Asia Open Archives (SAOA), a subset of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP), creates and maintains a collection of open access materials for the study of South Asia. This major collaborative initiative is aimed at addressing the current scarcity of digital resources pertinent to South Asian studies and at making collections more widely accessible both to North American scholars and to researchers worldwide.
SAOA (formerly SAMP OAI) addresses needs in all academic disciplines, from the humanities through the sciences. With an initial emphasis on colonial-era materials from South Asia, a carefully curated collection of resources will fill gaps in available online collections. Several criteria are used to select and prioritize resources for digitization, including:
Please visit the Statement of Value [2] to learn more about how SAOA provides demonstrable value to its members, partners, and the general public. The SAOA Five-Year Plan (FY21-25) [3] and SAOA reports from 2021 [4] and 2023 [5] provide additional details.
To become a member of SAOA, please submit the Participant Commitment Form [6] to SAOA [7].
Elements of SAOA governance are to be found in the SAMP Prospectus [8], Five-Year Plan (linked above), and the Organizational Practices [9] document.
To make a suggestion about content to digitize for inclusion in SAOA, please use this suggestion form [10].
The foundation of SAOA is inter-institutional collaboration and its impact is achieved through an inclusive diversity of members. Fostering meaningful collaboration while recognizing difference necessitates a variety of pathways to membership but the benefits are the same for all members. Simultaneous membership in SAOA’s parent body, SAMP (South Asia Materials Project), is a prerequisite for membership in SAOA and all membership terms are for a period of five years.
Member Categories. All institutions that can are strongly encouraged to support SAOA at the Category 1 level. SAOA is committed to the principles of and opportunities afforded by open access, yet relies on robust funding, content contribution and staffing support to complete its mission. Given the varying resources among institutions and our commitment to inclusion, SAOA has created membership categories in order to invite participation from as wide an array of institutions and stakeholders as possible.
Below, we define some general criteria to differentiate between the categories and to help South Asia librarians, scholars and local stakeholders try to advocate with their institutions for SAOA membership at a level appropriate to their own institution. Institutions may qualify under a certain membership category based on the contributions they are able to make, but the following factors may be considered locally for seeking an appropriate level:
Possible characteristics of Category 2 members might include one or more of these:
Limited staffing dedicated to South Asia
Moderate annual South Asia materials budgets
Some South Asia-specific course offerings, research or programs; or individual scholars with strong South Asia research or teaching interests
Possible characteristics of Category 3 members might include one or more of these:
Small or no budgets dedicated to South Asia; or small or no funds to dedicate to collaborative open-access projects
Very limited or no staffing dedicated to South Asia
Some South Asia teaching and research interest
Some significant or unique South Asia holdings in their collections
Contributions. There are three types of memberships at different levels of contribution:
Category 1 Members contribute a minimum of $25,000 paid over five years. Additional optional contributions may include digital assets, vetted by SAOA and/or contributions of staff time for SAOA activities and services.
Category 2 Members contribute a minimum of $20,000 paid over five years. Additional optional contributions may include digital assets, vetted by SAOA, and/or contributions of staff time for SAOA activities and services.
Category 3 Members contribute a minimum of $10,000 paid over five years, OR creation and contribution of a substantial amount of content in the form of new digital assets (minimum 500 digital volumes over five years), vetted by SAOA, AND/OR substantial contributions of staff time for SAOA activities and services.
Benefits. All SAOA Members are eligible to:
Stand for election to serve on the SAOA Executive Board.
Serve on Working Groups on Content Curation, Infrastructure, and Funding.
Vote in the SAOA Executive Board elections.
Provide input on SAOA decisions and documentation.
Institutions may contribute staff time to support SAOA’s daily operations and activities. These contributions may include: creation or manipulation of metadata, program support, scanning of material, quality control of digital content, or other work that supports the SAOA program and has been discussed and approved by the SAOA Executive Board before membership is finalized.
Institutions may contribute digital content for SAOA’s collections. This pathway to membership is particularly encouraged for institutions that have existing digital content or current digitizing capabilities but which lack the technical infrastructure to make that content freely and publicly available. SAOA purposefully seeks to be as inclusive as possible when considering in-kind pathways to membership:
“In-kind Contributions” must align with SAOA Selection Guidelines. The Selection Guidelines are also linked in the SAOA Five-Year Plan (FY21-25) [3] and are interpreted and implemented by the Content Curation Working Group. All SAOA-branded content is subject to a proposal process, including “In-Kind Contributions”, and ultimately is reviewed and voted on by the SAOA Executive Board. Specifics about the content of in-kind Contributions (per the proposal process) should be communicated by the potential member and agreed to by the SAOA Executive Board before membership is finalized.
“In-kind Contributions” must meet basic digitization specifications as outlined in SAOA’s Digitization Guidelines [12].
“In-kind Contributions” should not already be openly available through a stable platform.
To join SAOA, institutions must make a commitment for five years established by the Participant Commitment Form [13].
SAOA aims to include as many members as possible, and welcomes inquiries regarding membership possibilities from potential members.
To stay up to date with SAOA news and announcements, subscribe to our quarterly newsletter [14].
SAOA would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following institutions. If we have missed a contribution of which you are aware, please let us know by sending an email to saoa@crl.edu [15].
MEMBER CONTRIBUTORS
SAOA appreciates the support of institutions that have committed for a five-year period (some contributors are financial and others are in-kind). SAOA Member institutions are listed here [16].
FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTORS
SAOA appreciates the contributions of the Title VI National Resource Centers who have voluntarily committed funds. The institutions that have committed funds for FY19-22:
IN-KIND CONTRIBUTORS
SAOA appreciates the contributions of institutions who have voluntarily committed content for the collections. These institutions are:
The SAOA Executive Board consists of both elected and ex officio members.
Three representatives from SAOA members are elected to three year terms by the members of SAMP. The terms of office of these elected members are staggered, so that one seat on the SAOA Executive Board becomes open each year. Membership on the Executive Board is limited to two consecutive terms. The current SAMP Chairperson (ex officio) and a representative from the Center for Research Libraries (non-voting ex officio) are also members of the SAOA Executive Board.
The Executive Board selects a Chair from among its members for a two-year term; reappointment is permitted.
Members of SAOA are encouraged to get involved in the project by joining one of SAOA's Working Groups. These three Working Groups are standing bodies of SAOA and report to the SAOA Executive Board. They work in close consultation with each other and with the Program Coordinator, South Asia Open Archives.
The Content Curation Working Group [22] solicits ideas for new SAOA content from scholars and librarians, conducts research on available holdings, and selects and prioritizes materials for Executive Board consideration, on all matters associated with SAOA's core mission of providing digital resources for open access. These include, but are not limited to, consulting with other digital projects and archives for content, selection of titles for inclusion, and approaches to copyright clearance for titles. Consults with other SAOA Working Groups as appropriate.
The Funding Working Group [23] provides recommendations to the Executive Board on all matters associated with the financial well-being of the SAOA. These include, but are not limited to, fundraising from external sources, development of cash flow projects, and solicitation of new members.
The Infrastructure Working Group [24] provides recommendations to the Executive Board on all matters associated with the supporting technological framework of the SAOA. These include, but are not limited to:
The Outreach Working Group [25] contributes to the ongoing promotion of SAOA. It participates in shaping the vision of SAOA as the initiatve grows and develops over time. This includes:
The Content Curation Working Group is a standing body of the South Asia Open Archives, reporting to the SAOA Executive Board and working in close consultation with the Program Coordinator and other Working Groups.
Ryan Perkins, Stanford University (chair)
Sohaib Baig, University of California, Los Angeles
Deepa Banerjee, University of Washington
Brent Bianchi, Yale University
David Magier, Princeton University
Jeffrey Martin, University of Michigan
James Nye, University of Chicago
Gautham Reddy, Emory University
The Content Curation Working Group solicits ideas for new SAOA content from scholars and librarians, conducts research on available holdings, and selects and prioritizes materials for Executive Board consideration, on all matters associated with SAOA's core mission of providing digital resources for open access. These include, but are not limited to:
The Content Curation Working Group contributes to one of the most central components of SAOA: the shape of its collections. When making selection decisions, the work of the Content Curation Working Group is informed by two important documents approved by the SAOA membership:
These two documents help focus SAOA’s collection development around thematic areas and provide a rationale for making informed selection decisions.
The Content Curation Working Group is composed of at least three or more members from SAOA member institutions appointed by the Executive Board. At least one member will be from the Executive Board and that member will Chair or Co-Chair the Working Group. The SAOA Project Coordinator participates in meetings of the Working Group. While there is no fixed term of service for Content Curation Working Group members, they are encouraged to participate for at least two years to help ensure continuity and progress.
Tasks, timelines, and deliverables for the Working Group will typically be recommended by the Executive Board. The Working Group may also propose tasks within its purpose that contribute to the SAOA mission.
The Content Curation Working Group reports to the Executive Board on a monthly basis and more often if requested. The Executive Board will be responsible for reporting recommendations by the Working Group to the SAOA membership.
Updated on October 16, 2020
The Funding Working Group on is a standing body of the South Asia Open Archives, reporting to the SAOA Executive Board and working in close consultation with the Program Coordinator and other Working Groups.
Abhijit Bhattacharya, Centre for Studies in Social Studies, Calcutta (CSSSC) (chair)
Gary Hausman, Columbia University
Michael Hopper, Harvard University
Laura Ring, University of Chicago
The Funding Working Group provides recommendations to the Executive Board on all matters associated with the financial wellbeing of SAOA. These include, but are not limited to:
The Funding Working Group contributes to the financial stability of SAOA. It participates in shaping the vision of SAOA as the initiative grows and develops over time.
The Funding Working Group is composed of at least three members from SAOA member institutions appointed by the Executive Board. At least one member will be from the Executive Board and that member will chair the Working Group. The Project Coordinator participates in meetings of the Working Group. The term of service on the Working Group, other than for the chair, will be one year to encourage broad participation over time by SAOA member institutions.
Tasks, timelines, and deliverables for the Working Group will typically be recommended by the Executive Board. The Working Group may also propose tasks within its purpose that contribute to the SAOA mission.
The Funding Working Group will report to the Executive Board at least quarterly and more often if requested. The Executive Board will be responsible for reporting recommendations by the Working Group to the SAOA membership.
Approved by the OAi Executive Board on May 26, 2016
The Infrastructure Working Group is a standing body of the South Asia Open Archives, reporting to the SAOA Executive Board and working in close consultation with the SAOA Program Coordinator and other Working Groups.
Members of the Infrastructure Working Group:
R. Prakash, Roja Muthiah Research Library (chair)
David Faust, University of Minnesota
Adnan Malik, University of California, Berkeley
Jef Pierce, University of Pennsylvania
Mary Rader, University of Texas at Austin
Purpose:
The Infrastructure Working Group provides recommendations to the Executive Board on all matters associated with the supporting technological framework of the SAOA. These include, but are not limited to:
Rationale:
The Infrastructure Working Group contributes to the permanent framework underlying SAOA activities. It participates in shaping the vision of SAOA as the initiative grows and develops over time.
Membership:
The Infrastructure Working Group is composed of at least three members from SAOA member institutions. At least one member will be from the Executive Board and that member will serve as the Working Group Chair or Co-Chair. The SAOA Program Coordinator participates in meetings of the Working Group. The term of service on the Working Group is one year and members are encouraged to renew their term of service.
Tasks, Timelines, and Deliverables:
Tasks, timelines, and deliverables for the Working Group are typically recommended by the Executive Board. The Working Group may also propose tasks within its purpose that contribute to the SAOA mission.
Reporting:
The Infrastructure Working Group reports to the Executive Board on a monthly basis and more often if requested. The Executive Board will be responsible for reporting recommendations by the Working Group to the SAOA membership.
Updated on September 14, 2020
The Outreach Working Group is a standing body of the South Asia Open Archives (SAOA), reporting to the SAOA Executive Board and working in close consultation with the SAOA Program Coordinator and other Working Groups.
Members of the Outreach Working Group:
Laura Ring, University of Chicago (Chair)
Ellen Ambrosone, Princeton University
Triveni Kuchi, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Todd Michelson-Ambelang, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Mara Thacker, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Purpose:
The charge of the Outreach Working Group is to enhance, increase, and diversify use of the South Asia Open Archives through community engagement.
Our outreach is aimed at the user community writ large, encompassing both current and future/potential users, and member and non-member institutions across the globe. In furthering the open access, decolonizing mission of SAOA, we have a particular commitment to reaching a diversity of scholars and institutions in South Asia, as well as non-elite and minority-serving institutions in the United States.
The forms of community engagement we propose include:
Rationale:
The Outreach Working Group contributes to the ongoing promotion of SAOA. It participates in shaping the vision of SAOA as the initiative grows and develops over time.
Membership:
The Outreach Working Group is composed of at least three members from SAOA member institutions. At least one member will be from the Executive Board and that member will serve as the Working Group Chair or Co-Chair. The SAOA Program Coordinator participates in meetings of the Working Group. The term of service on the Working Group is one year and members are encouraged to renew their term of service.
Tasks, Timelines, and Deliverables:
Tasks, timelines, and deliverables for the Working Group are typically recommended by the Executive Board. The Working Group may also propose tasks within its purpose that contribute to the SAOA mission.
Reporting:
The Outreach Working Group reports to the Executive Board on a monthly basis and more often if requested. The Executive Board will be responsible for reporting recommendations by the Working Group to the SAOA membership.
Updated on July 27, 2021
SAOA is developing carefully curated thematic research collections in various languages by digitizing key print and microfilm holdings supplied by our cooperative network of Member Institutions across South Asia and the U.S. The Content Curation Working Group encourages scholars and members of the public to use the online suggestion form [10] to submit suggested resources for inclusion in SAOA. Please contact SAOA (saoa@crl.edu [28]) with any questions or clarifications on using the form, or on any other query related to suggested items.
SAOA prioritizes the following types of out-of-copyright material for digitization:
Gazetteers and Census Reports
Statistical and Annual Reports
These are SAOA’s technical guidelines for digital files derived from text-based materials (in print, microfilm, or microfiche) to be included in SAOA’s digital collections. Digitization providers (commercial entities as well as academic institutions) will be expected to conform to these specifications to ensure consistency of the digital materials for ingest into the SAOA digital asset management system. The following are the ideal specifications for ingesting image-based material into SAOA’s collections.
Estimates of the total number of images, total number of volumes (for serials and multi-volume monographs), and if possible, total file size (in MB, GB, or TB),
Details regarding the condition of the print or microform material.
Use one of the following metadata schemes: Dublin Core or MARC21.
Be provided in one of the following metadata/catalog record file formats: MARC XML or CSV.
Conform to SAOA’s metadata template (for example, for monographs vs serials).
Include accurate holdings information for serials or multipart titles.
Have been provided in a sample set of records for SAOA staff to review during the proposal phase, as specified above.
NOTE: the data entered into Forum (or copied/pasted into Forum) will be UTF-8. SAOA’s hosting platform defaults to UTF-8 encoding for data entry.
Master image files for preservation: TIFF images,
Last updated: September 14, 2021
SAOA is committed to the preservation of, access to and discovery of resources (digital assets as well as the associated metadata) created by and facilitated through SAOA. The cooperative and federated nature of SAOA necessitates that this preservation, access, and discoverability may take many forms, differing timelines, and separately determined costs, depending on the nature and scope of each individual project. As such, each project may need to be interpreted and championed on its own terms but SAOA is guided by the principles below.
The long term maintenance of digital content is central to SAOA’s mission but responsibility for it may be distributed depending on creator and institutional capacity. To the extent possible, SAOA strives to preserve its digital files according to established digital preservation standards for stable and flexible format (ex., tif image files). A long-term goal of SAOA is to preserve a dark archived master of every SAOA-affiliated resource in a SAOA-controlled repository.
Digital master files created by SAOA will be stored in a dark archive by CRL.
If a SAOA partner has the institutional capacity to preserve digital files (a “trusted digital repository”), they will be maintained at the partner institution, pursuant to that institution’s policies and procedures. Any access and/or discoverability files will be required to point back to the preservation files in associated metadata.
If the SAOA partner does not have the institutional capacity to preserve digital files, they will be transferred to a dark archive at CRL.
Free and open access to materials associated with SAOA is paramount to SAOA’s mission. Building upon SAOA’s distributed and federated nature, SAOA strives to avoid duplication and to encourage digital file accessibility (“hosting”) from multiple institutions. SAOA strives to provide access to multiple access file types (ex. JP2, JPG, PDF).
Digital files created by SAOA will be made openly accessible through SAOA platform(s).
If a SAOA partner has the institutional capacity to make digital files accessible in a stable and sustainable way, with institutionally-supported permanent URLs for each item (i.e. to “host” them on their own repository servers), they will be maintained at the partner institution following that institution’s policies and procedures.
If the SAOA partner does not have the institutional capacity to make digital files they have created accessible in that fashion, or if in the future, they are unable to maintain their provision of access, the files will be transferred to SAOA for ingest on SAOA’s platform(s).
SAOA resources are made valuable through their discovery and use. The cooperative and federated nature of SAOA determines that this discovery may take many forms depending on the nature and scope of each individual project. The long-term goal of SAOA is to enable integrated discovery across the SAOA corpus of resources, encompassing materials hosted through SAOA platforms, partners, and other institutions.
All SAOA resources have sufficient technical and descriptive metadata to be discoverable.
All metadata will be openly and sustainably maintained on web-based platform(s).
All metadata will follow established standards (ex. MARC, Dublin Core).
All metadata will be open and exposed for harvesting, by SAOA or other interested institutions.
Last updated: December 21, 2017
The Selection Guidelines, prepared by the Content Curation Working Group, help guide the evolution and expansion of SAOA’s curated collection, building on SAOA’s first Five-Year Plan, its five years of evolving collection development experience, and the FY21-25 Five-Year Plan. In our second five years we will broaden SAOA’s collection scope to incorporate additional themes, more coverage of under-represented geographic areas of South Asia, greater diversity of languages, communities, new resource types (such as audio/visual material, video, data sets, and maps), and wider date coverage (including post-colonial materials). With these criteria in mind, SAOA considers proposals submitted by anyone through its online suggestion form.
(The following themes are not mutually exclusive, due to their multidisciplinary scope.)
Dated: May 15, 2020 & Updated June 4, 2020.
Prepared by the Content Curation Working Group: Aruna Magier (Chair), Deepa Banerjee, Abhijit Bhattacharya, Gary Hausman, Jeffrey Martin, Gautham Reddy
SAOA fosters robust online research on South Asia through its mission to produce and preserve digital content, to make digital content openly accessible, and to foster communities committed to collaboration through open access.
The following principles, prepared by the SAOA Executive Board and reviewed by the SAOA membership, function as a dynamic document to inform collection development decisions for the allocation of resources (financial as well as human):
Dated: March 23, 2019
Links
[1] http://saoa.crl.edu
[2] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/Statement%20of%20Value_0.pdf
[3] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/FINAL%20SAOA%20FY21-25%20Five-Year%20Plan.pdf
[4] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/SAOA%20Annual%20Report%20-%20Spring%202021.pdf
[5] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/2023_SAOA_AnnualActivitiesReport.pdf
[6] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/SAOA_Participant_CommitmentForm_2022.pdf
[7] mailto:saoa@crl.edu?subject=SAOA%20Participant%20Commitment%20Form
[8] https://www.crl.edu/area-studies/samp/membership-information/prospectus
[9] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/SAOA_Organizational%20Practices_Document-Approved%28Amended_November_2022%29.pdf
[10] https://airtable.com/shrp5mo7pD2Y4dBq6
[11] http://workspace.crl.edu/
[12] https://www.crl.edu/digitization-guidelines
[13] https://www.crl.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/SAOA_Participant_CommitmentForm_2022_0.pdf
[14] http://eepurl.com/h-ivaf
[15] mailto:saoa@crl.edu?subject=South%20Asia%20Open%20Archives%20(SAOA)
[16] https://www.crl.edu/samp/saoa/members
[17] mailto:c.ryanperkins@stanford.edu?subject=South%20Asia%20Open%20Archives%20(SAOA)
[18] mailto:abhijit@cssscal.org?subject=South%20Asia%20Open%20Archives%20(SAOA)
[19] mailto:ira.prakash@gmail.com?subject=SAOA
[20] mailto:rin6@uchicago.edu?subject=South%20Asia%20Open%20Archives%20(SAOA)
[21] mailto:elhost@crl.edu?subject=SAOA%20Inquiry
[22] https://www.crl.edu/content-curation-working-group
[23] https://www.crl.edu/funding-working-group
[24] https://www.crl.edu/infrastructure-working-group
[25] https://www.crl.edu/outreach-working-group
[26] https://www.crl.edu/selection-guidelines
[27] https://www.crl.edu/selection-principles
[28] mailto:saoa@crl.edu?subject=SAOA%20Content%20Proposal%20Questions
[29] https://brill.com/fileasset/downloads_products/31800_Guide.pdf
[30] https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/southasia/off-1984.html#Heading2
[31] http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/unionlist/unionlist.php
[32] http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/nbil/aboutmipp.html
[33] https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007547563