Ongoing Projects

2024

Documentation of Inscriptions

Project Number	NF/PG/2024/0001	Grant Agency / Donors	British Library	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Mayooranathan Ratnavelpillai	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2024
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims on documenting, digitizing, preserving, and sharing documents and other sources related to the Trincomalee district, assisting in various educational and social studies related to the district. This project will provide encouragement to those engaged in research on Trincomalee and create an online system where they can easily access the main resources they need.

• Ongoing

History of Medicine Collection in Northern Sri Lanka

Project Number	NF/PG/2024/0002	Grant Agency / Donors	Prof . Sreeharan , International Medical Health Organization (IMHO)	Project Owner	Noolaham Foundation
Project Mentor	Dr.Sugumar	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2024
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project assists to expose the importance and value of the history of Medicine Collection to society. Generally, people do not know the importance of history in their culture and life. This project will provide great awareness about Medicine Collection in Northern Sri Lanka and will document the major players. events and ideas that played a role in the evolution of the healthcare services in Northern Sri Lanka.

• Ongoing

Regional Documentation - Ampara

Project Number	NF/PG/2024/0003	Grant Agency / Donors	University of Toronto Scarborough Libray	Project Owner	Noolaham Foundation
Project Mentor	Mayooranathan Ratnavelpillai	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2024
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Ampara is located 320 km from Colombo. Sinhalese, Tamils ​​and Muslims live in the city. Ampara district has four parliamentary constituencies namely Kalmunai, Sammanthurai, Pottuvil and Ampara. Ampara district is located along the Urogana region. After the tenth century, some of the tribes that inhabited the coast of the present Ampara district played an important role in the administration of the Batticaloa region. Today's Sammanthurai was the capital of the then Batticaloa region. Thirukovil Murugan Temple was one of the famous temples in the East.

• Ongoing

Documentation of Panchangam

Project Number	NF/PG/2024/0001	Grant Agency / Donors	British Library	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Mayooranathan Ratnavelpillai	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2024
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Documenting Panchangams (two types - Trikanitham, Vakyam) is important in the existence of ritual and culture of a society. Panchangams are not only helpful in Hindu formal life matters. These are seen to include scientific subjects such as astronomy, mathematics and planetary positions. Based on them, it will be possible to learn how panchangams influence Sri Lankan Tamil culture, Tamil lifestyle and social issues by documenting panchangams through this project.

• Ongoing

2023

Regional Documentation - Trincomalee

Project Number	NF/PG/2023/0001	Grant Agency / Donors	Ramanitharan Kandiah and Friends	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Mayooranathan Ratnavelpillai	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2023
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims on documenting, digitizing, preserving, and sharing documents and other sources related to the Trincomalee district, assisting in various educational and social studies related to the district. This project will provide encouragement to those engaged in research on Trincomalee and create an online system where they can easily access the main resources they need.

• Interim Report

• Ongoing

Eelam Related Tamil's Documents in Tamilnadu India

Project Number	NF/PG/2023/0002	Grant Agency / Donors	SAIVANERIKOODAM Thamilar Calari	Project Owner	Dr.Kanaga Sugumar
Project Mentor	Dr.Kanaga Sugumar	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2023
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims at identifying the documents on Sri Lanka published in India, as well as documents written by Eelam writers in India in the past.

• Interim Report
• Ongoing

Documentation of Indigenous People

Project Number	NF/PG/2023/0003	Grant Agency / Donors	NCFP Foundation	Project Owner	Prashanth Srinivasan
Project Mentor	Balmforth Mark	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2023
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims to document undiscovered traditions and cultural movements of indigenous peoples with their permission in a contemporary manner without any alteration. Knowing their arts, traditional practices, and spontaneous lifestyles in harmony with nature and establishing new ways and approaches to anthropological and ethnographic perspectives and fields of study in Sri Lanka

• Full Report

Endaged Archive programme 1551

Project Number	NF/PG/2023/0005	Grant Agency / Donors	British Library	Project Owner	Noolaham Foundation
Project Mentor	Kopinath Thillainathan	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2023
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims to identify and digitize Ola Manuscripts in the Eastern and Northern provinces of Sri Lanka. It was created as part of Noolaham’s objective of documenting, digitizing, and disseminating knowledge bases associated with the Tamil-speaking communities

• Ongoing

Uthayan Library Collection

Project Number	NF/PG/2023/0006	Grant Agency / Donors	Maithri Sabaratnam	Project Owner	Noolaham Foundation
Project Mentor	Sujeevan Tharmalingam	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2023
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

The project intends to digitize the extensive collection of books, periodicals, and papers in the Uthayan Library. The Noolaham Foundation aims to make the library's knowledge available to everyone by digitizing the Uthayan Collection's valuable books and written materials.

• Ongoing

2022

Caste, land, and labour in Jaffna: a survey and digitization project in Sri Lankan agrarian history (EAP 1450)

Project Number	NF/PG/2022/0006	Grant Agency / Donors	British Library	Project Owner	Kopinath Thillainathan
Project Mentor	Balmforth Mark	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2022
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This 12-month pilot project will survey and digitize privately held records relating to caste, land ownership, and agricultural labour in Sri Lanka's Jaffna Peninsula, created prior to the island's independence in 1948. The survey seeks manuscript (paper and palm leaf) and printed material relating to the management and ownership of land, labour contracts, and agricultural records. Digitisation will commence with the manuscript collection of William Digby (1849–1904), a late-nineteenth century British author and political organizer who was a vociferous advocate for the reform of British policy in India and intervention in South Asian agrarian poverty.

• Ongoing

Next-generation AI-based Ecosystem for Noolaham

Project Number	NF/PG/2022/0005	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Prashanth Sirinivasan	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2022
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims to complete a plan for the project on large scale annotation, storage and analysis of Sri Lankan Tamil content. This is relating to the field of semantic culturomics in which researchers data mine large digital archives to investigate cultural phenomena reflected in language and word usage. The project consists of a language pre-processing layer, language resource layer, processing resource layer and finally a knowledge engineering component which all forms an AI-based ecosystem for analysing Noolaham foundation’s content. The plan would consist of creating detailed proposals for a number of sub-projects involved in each of these layers.

• Interim Report

• Ongoing

Digitization at Jaffna Public Library 2022

Project Number	NF/PG/2022/0003	Grant Agency / Donors	Manitha Neyam Trust	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Thayanthan Thirunavukkarasu	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2022
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham Foundation has already documented some documents from Jaffna Public Library in the past. This project aims to document all the magazines and newspapers available in Jaffna Public library which have not yet been digitized with the intention of long term preservation and usage.

• Interim Report
• Ongoing

2020

Documentation of Documentation Process

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0019	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Natkeeran L Kanthan
Project Mentor	Kopinath Thillainathan	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham Foundation and Digital Library, Archives, Museum, Memory Institutional Communities are developed Extensive Knowledge, Skills and abilities in various portions. Similarly, Noolaham Foundation Document the Documentary of Noolaham Founation & it's Services. Bring this open access to public Communities also very important. Accordingly, The program aims to document the activities of Noolaham Foundation Including Documentation, Digital Preservation, Digital Library and Research based Subjects. The vision of Document the Noolaham Foundation Related Matters. Documentation of Documentation open access, Institutional knowledge, Preservation activities and Noolaham Foundation Projects.The above documentation is essential for the fulfillment of various purposes such as Community based practices. When documenting Tamil speaking Communities, it is important to document the written records published in Tamil from those communities related to them Noolaham foundation has been carrying out programs. Thus what are the activities of Noolaham Foundation especially Documentation, digital preservation, Digital library related matters Documenting becomes important. According to that, we need to document the knowledge and share is important. It will also easier to describe Library activities by providing the community with such documented records.this type of documentation can also be used to train affiliates of the Noolaham Foundation.

• Interim Report - 2022/2023

Kilinochi District - Regional Documentation 2020

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0016	Grant Agency / Donors	Kili People	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan	Project Locations	Killinochchi	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

As part of creating the Kilinochi Regional Archive, efforts are being made to document the history of the district, the traditions of the people who live there, their habits and cultural and artistic practices, the social structures and systems that are observed in the district, agriculture and other livelihood activities in which the people of the district engage, and institutions such as schools, places of worship, women’s organizations and community centers that are located in the district, the economic changes and development initiatives that took place in the district, the measures taken in the district toward ecological conservation and the challenges faced by the people of the district during the war.

• Interim Report - 2021/2022/2023
• Ongoing

Digitization of Donated Documents 2020

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0014	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Rathina Iyer Pathmanaba Iyer
Project Mentor	Rathina Iyer Pathmanaba Iyer	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Under this project, documents that are published from locations where the Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking diaspora communities live are documented and digitized. The documents that are gathered for this project include rare documents that shed light on the religious, social, political, economic and cultural lives of the diaspora communities.

• Interim Report - 2021/2022/2023
• Ongoing

Open Education Resource 2020

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0009	Grant Agency / Donors	Face	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project will be carried out as a continuation of the projects that were undertaken earlier to collect, document, digitize and provide open access to documents that are used for learning and teaching purposes in schools. These earlier projects aimed to support schools and the larger community in their educational pursuits. The documents that were collected, documented, digitized and made open access included documents available in Tamil that had already been made open access in Sri Lanka and other related documents for which permission was obtained. Descriptions of the documents composed in line with the standards followed by Noolaham Foundation were attached to the documents that were made available to the larger public

• Interim Report - 2020/2021/2022/2023
• Ongoing

Vaasihasalai 2020

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0008	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Rathina Iyer Pathmanaba Iyer	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham has been documenting newspaper and magazines from 2005 to date. As part of this initiative, some of the early newspapers and magazines that emerged from the Tamil-speaking communities in Sri Lanka were documented. As continuation of this initiative, it has become an important activity of Noolaham to document newspapers and magazines that are published today. A special feature of this initiative is that contemporary newspapers and magazines are digitized and made available to the readers within a short period of time from their publication. An objective of this project is to provide the readers the ambience of a library in the virtual space. Among the written documents that have a wider reach among the masses newspapers and magazines are important. They attempt to influence the thinking of the masses. We cannot undervalue the role played by newspapers and magazines in the past in the developments that took place in religious, social, political, economic and international spheres. Newspapers function as primary sources in the writing of history. In light of these roles newspapers have played and continue to play, it is important to collect and preserve them for the benefit of the future generations. This is an important initiative in the area of documentation. The Vaasikasalai Project is important to the historical existence of the Tamil speaking communities. This project can support the creation and preservation of a living culture of newspaper reading.

• Interim Report - 2023
• Ongoing

Early Tamil Works - Munnor Avanaham

Project Number	NF/PG/2020/0004	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Natkeeran L Kanthan
Project Mentor	Mayooranathan Ratnavelpillai	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham Foundation has undertaken an initiative called “Old Documents Related to the Tamil-speaking Communities” in order to catalogue, preserve and provide access to documents about the Tamil speaking communities in Sri Lanka published before 1900. Initiatives such archive.org and hathitrust.org have made available in the public domain publications from Sri Lanka and information about those publications. The Jaffna Protestant Digital Library that Noolaham collaborated with another group provided a catalyst to this initiative.

• Interim Report - 2023
• Ongoing