Rare books, manuscripts retrieved from flooded SVK library

By T.Lakshmipathi

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 3. In a major salvage operation, a treasure of rare books and manuscripts was retrieved from the flooded library of the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram (SVK) in Hyderabad. International conservation experts have described the volunteers engaged in rescuing the books as "miracle workers".

The retrieved books have been sent for "cold storage", a laborious treatment process lasting over five months to restore their utility. How many of them could be restored cent per cent is anybody's guess, says Mr.C.Sambi Reddy, secretary of SVK trust.

The heavy rain on August 24 flooded the two cellars housing the SVK's library. The collections in the library, the result of a painstaking effort of many decades, were inundated in a 15-foot wall of water.

Nearly 1.25 lakh books, newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and manuscripts were stored in the two blocks of the library, which is visited daily about 400 persons. As soon as the rain receded, the volunteers of SVK plunged into action.

A struggle for five days (as the waters did not recede fast) helped save the invaluable collection, which represent a literary and cultural heritage. Acting on the advice of conservation experts from the USA on website, diesel pumps were pressed into operation to flush out water.

News of the flood was received in the US on August 24 itself and the response from the universities participating in the SVK library project was overwhelming. Essential technical advice was forthcoming on the website round-the-clock.

About 3000 plastic crates were procured from different parts of the State to pack the dried books. A private cold storage facility was hired by SVK at a cost of Rs 1.10 per month to freeze the books at minus 20 degrees "C" for five months

a treatment process prescribed by the experts. In all 14 "lorry loads" of books were transported from SVK to the cold storage plant.

One of the two submerged cellars housing the Urdu Research Centre (URC) boasts of a rich collection of documents and firmans from the times of the Mughal emperor, Aurangazeb, and all records, Government publications, gazette notifications of the five dynasties of the Asaf Jahis.

The library and the Urdu research centre is a shining example of collaboration between SVK and a group of American universitites on a new approach to information access. The US partners include the Universitites of California, Berkeley, Chicago, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Austin, Washington, Wisconsin, Columbia and Harvard.

The Chicago University purchased the collection from a private bibliophile, Abdul Samad Khan. The microfilming of the books in Urdu centre, taken up at a cost of Rs 25 lakhs under a seven-year project was not yet complete.

The library received 75 cartons of books shipped by Dr.Velichala Narayana Rao of Wisconsin University and they were all stored in the cellar. "They were also retrieved and sent for cold- freezing", Mr.Sambi Reddy said.

The restoration action is a tedious process of which the freezing of the collection is only a beginning. It is going to cost a whopping Rs 23 lakhs. A combination of Governmental agencies, NGOs and individuals have come forward to fund the restoration project.

The back editions of all the leading newspapers, were however, washed away in the flood waters. Even the bounded files containing the back numbers of The Hindu, Hyderabad edition for as many as 17 years, donated by the Hyderabad office could not be retrieved. Most newspaper files were reduced to pulp.

"There is a good cause for optimism that much of the collections can be salvaged", the international experts assured Mr.Sambi Reddy.

Dr.David Mageir, a renowned conservationist from Germany, would attend a workshop to be organised by SVK in the city in October as part of the salvage operation.

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