Azim Premji University on Monday launched an open access digital archive of over 5,600 school books and related material from India and other countries in South Asia. The Schoolbooks Archive, as the platform is called, has material in multiple languages including Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Arabic, and other languages apart from English that span a period of more than 200 years.

The archives have textbooks, works of reference such as atlases, dictionaries, conversion tables and encyclopedias, workbooks, charts, question banks and guides, as well as teaching-learning and audio-visual materials.

“The Schoolbooks Archive provides a window to all knowledge seekers to explore what our evolving society over two hundred years considers important knowledge to be passed on over generations of young learners in schools. The diversity of language, history and culture within the Indian subcontinent, as captured through the lens of codified knowledge transmitted through schoolbooks, allows us to engage with deeper questions about the content and aims of education,” said Reshmi Mitra, Head – Knowledge Resource Centre, Azim Premji University, in a press release.

The current focus of the collection is the period from 1819 to the present. According to the press release, archive is designed to cater to the need for historically located documents and teaching learning resources that can be used by educators, curriculum and textbook developers, illustrators and designers of textbooks, and historians, among others.