BRC Welcomes Eminent Guests

left: Hari Sauri Prabhu, Vaiyasaki Prabhu, Malati Devi Dasi, Srutirupa Dasi, Krsnarupa Dasi, and Visakha Dasi, Srila Prabhupad’s disciples. Rameshwar Prabhu, former head of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT) also visited that day. He and Hari Sauri Prabhu are pictured below.

BRC Manuscripts Mission Visits Sri Vrindavan Dham

BRC Bengali librarian Bharati Roy and BRC Digitising specialist Asis Chakraborty spent a few weeks in Vrindavan searching out acquisitions for BRC’s collection at the end of 2015.

The BRC team is particularly grateful to Sanjay Goswami of Radha Madan Gopal Jiu Temple for his hospitality during their visit there, and for the access he provided to his personal collection. Many manuscripts were digitised and cataloged. 

Illustrated Koran found in Sanjay Goswami's collection, verified to be over 400 years old.

Manuscripts Mission Team Visits Ariadaha Association Library and Literary Club

In January 2016, the Manuscript Mission’s Team was invited to a century-old library in Kolkata at in Belgharia, near North 24 Parganas. The Ariadaha Association Library and Literary Club is next to a Sripat (dwelling place) of Raghunath Das Goswami. BRC cataloged, preserved, and digitised over 200 manuscripts there. 

Main entrance of library

The condition of manuscripts before BRC came

After BRC completed their service 

New Staff Introduction: Smt. Pushti Devi Dasi

Pushti Devi Dasi (Papiya Chatterjee) joined BRC in May. She is serving in both the Membership  Department and the Publications Department. 

Pushti joined the Iskcon movement in Kolkata in 1987. She served in Sri Sri Radha Govinda’s kitchen at the Kolkata temple for several years and later became the personal assistant of then temple president, Adiridaran Das. She gained a lot of experience during her service there –  organising membership/donations,maintaining correspondences, managing event planning, etc. 

After she married, she lived for many years in the US with her family and served in the New Dwarka in Los Angeles. She returned to India in 2010. 

She is very enthusiastic to serve at BRC. “I’m very excited about our upcoming publications and assisting with the Fund Raising program,” she said. “I look forward to learning a lot and adding to my experience.”

New Technology Advisor at BRC

Mr. Indranil Das Gupta of L2C2 Technologies has joined the BRC team as a consultant. He is a software architect and has been a Free and Open Source (FOSS) technology and is expert in Koha, the world’s first and also the largest Open Source Integrated Library Software.

He is working diligently along with BRC Librarian Angelo Pugliese (Acyuta Prabhu) to implement systems for our server to be able to upload huge amounts of content without crashing.

Currently, they are designing a framework for manuscripts; including a cataloging form where details are given (meta data) including title, author, and year to increase accessibility for consultation by scholars and library patrons online.

This manuscript framework is an entirely new contribution to library technology, and will be made available as open source to libraries worldwide that are using the Koha cataloging system. BRC is very pleased to be involved with such a exciting and cutting-edge project.