All Projects

2013

Tamil Documentation Conference 2013

Noolaham Foundation which is a charitable organization (GA 2390) founded to provide enhanced access to information sources and foster knowledge-based development in Sri Lanka has been engaged in digital documentation and preservation initiatives since January 2005. During the first 8 years, have amassed hundreds of volunteers and archived more than 12,000 publications related to Sri Lanka’s Tamil speaking communities, created a vast digital library, and conducted numerous seminars and workshops. The biggest challenge face in our documentation activities is the lack of awareness among the general public as well as the research community of the importance of documentation.

To overcome this hurdle systematically and academically, the Noolaham Foundation has conducted annual conferences and published a research book which is consist of 48 selected researches. There were eight topics, and editorial board with professors and scholars were supported Noolaham Foundation to qualify the researches. It has instigated nearly 108 new researchers among scholars who are interested in the field of documentation and preservation of knowledge, created a platform for researchers to present the work that they have already done in this area and shared their work and received feedback from each other. As aimed, this conference renewed interest in the areas of documentation and preservation in the larger community.

Panaiyolai Documentation Seminar 2013

Panaiyolai, which is the easily available and most usable commodity among the Tamil speaking communities in Sri Lanka is a name of the program of Noolaham Foundation. Under this programme, many seminars and knowledge transformation exercises carry out by Noolaham Foundation. On this background, a seminar titled ‘Panaiyolai’ was organized by the Noolaham Foundation on 25 April 2013 at Vinothan Hall, Colombo Tamil Sangam. The event started at 15:00 hrs was presided by Mr.Seran Sivananthamoorthy . The first address was on the topic “Introduction to Wikipedia” by Mr.A.Ravishankar, followed by an address by Mr.M.Mayuran on the topic “Open Content”, and finally Mr.T.Kopinath delivered an address on “Creative Commons”. The event was called over at about 18:00 hrs.

Upcountry documentation and archiving project

Archiving of the documents produced by upcountry scholars and writers is one of the programs of Noolaham Foundation. A working committee has formed to develop the documentation of upcountry documents. The committee includes senior journalists and writers such as Theliwaththai Joseph, Thilagarajah Mylvaganam (Malliyappusanthi Thilagar), Lunugala Sri, T.V.Thinakaran, M.A. Al- Azoomath, and Lenin Mathivanam. Through series of discussion and meetings convinced focusing on different methods and systems that could be devised and created for documenting up-country documents. A compact disk comprising 91 books was shared in many meeting with the relevant stakeholders. More than 150 books and other products were digitized up to the date and made available in www.noolaham.org . Mrs Radika Thinakaran, based in Hotagale is the focal person and carries out all digitizing and archiving activities.

2012

Panaiyolai Documentation Seminar 2012

Panaiyolai, which is the easily available and most usable commodity among the Tamil speaking communities in Sri Lanka is a name of the program concept of Noolaham Foundation. Under this programme, many seminars and knowledge transformation exercises carry out by Noolaham Foundation. On this background, a seminar on Documentation was organized by the Noolaham Foundation on 09 September 2012 Sunday at ‘Thodarpaham’ conference hall in Jaffna town. The chief purpose of the seminar was to emphasize the importance of Documentation in today’s world and to widen the knowledge of the public on the field. The event started at 9.00 a.m, openings and addressed Mr.K.Kuruparan, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Jaffna on the topic ‘The importance of documentation of the Tamil speaking societies of Sri Lanka’, followed by an address by pioneer Mr.J. Arangaraj about ‘The contemporary position of us in relation to the documentation of the Tamil speaking societies of Sri Lanka’, Mr.S.Seran, chief operating officer of the Noolaham Foundation presented his speech on ‘The documentation of the countries of the world in accordance with the international standards and norms’, and finally Mr.S.Sureshkumar, addressed about ‘The documentation through the evolution of new technologies’.

A short film titled ‘Karanthai Poo’ was displayed. Many resource persons associated with the field including Mrs.Emelda Karunaharan, Librarian of the Jaffna Public Library, Mrs. Kalpana, Librarian of the library of the Medical Faculty of the University of Jaffna and Mr. Anuraj, Director of the Uthayan online actively participated in the discussion and presented their ideas. The seminar was over by about 1.30 p.m.

2007

Womens' Education and Research Centre Digitization Project

WERC Digitization project was the first collaborative project conducted by Noolaham Foundation. The objective of this project was to digitize the publications of WERC and Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran. This project was cordinated by G. Shaseevan.

WERC provided the publications, the computer, computer maintenance, and a space in their research library to carry out the scanning. Noolaham Foundation paid for the labour and scanner. This collaboration saw 140 publications being digitized.