Safeguarding Cultural Diversity, Workshop on Southeast Asian Manuscripts will be Conducted

Jakarta, DREAMSEA – After being officially launched on January 24, 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia, the Digital Repository of Endangered and Affected Manuscripts in Southeast Asia (DREAMSEA) program will hold a “Workshop on Preservation Manuscripts in Southeast Asia” on 4-6 July 2018 in Santika Premiere Hotel Bintaro, Tangerang Selatan, Indonesia.

“This workshop will be the first step that DREAMSEA’s core activities will start soon”, said Ismatu Ropi, Ph.D, a Program Coordinator of DREAMSEA.

DREAMSEA is a program aimed to preserve the diversity of Southeast Asian manuscripts. The program is devoted over the fact that although the region has rich cultural heritages, their existence is under threat due to both tropical climatic conditions and recent socio-political conflicts.

The focus of the program which is initiated by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) UIN Jakarta and the Centre for the Study of Manuscripts and Culture (CSMC) of the University of Hamburg is to convert manuscripts into digital media. Through this method, the sustainability of the diverse contents of Southeast Asian manuscripts will remain durable even though physical manuscripts will be no longer exist.

“DREAMSEA will give an understanding to the owners of the manuscripts on how to look after their physical manuscripts and accompany them how to digitise their manuscripts . Meanwhile, the physical manuscript will be kept by them “, said Prof. Dr. Oman Fathurahman, a Principal Investigator of DREAMSEA.

From 2017 to 2022, DREAMSEA has a mission to digitise over 240,000 images of Southeast Asian manuscripts. To achieve this target, DREAMSEA will collaborate with all strategic counterparts such as owners, researchers, and organizations in the field.

Through this workshop, the works to implement the mission will be synergized. Attended by 45 participants from Southeast Asian countries, this workshop aims to share knowledge and skill on manuscript digitising techniques. One of the speakers guiding this activity is Prof. Dr. Oman Fathurahman. In addition to him, the workshop will also present other experts on digitizing manuscripts and the preparation of metadata, they are Dr. Walid Mourad and Dr. Salam Rassi from Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML), Germany. [MNF]