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South Asian collection development at the British Museum: a commentary on the inclusion of audio-visual and digital content

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2019

Tavian Hunter
Tavian Hunter*
Affiliation:
Library and Archive Manager, Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), 16 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4JU, UK Email: thunter@iniva.org (Formerly Senior Administrator and Librarian, Department of Asia, The British Museum)
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Abstract

The British Museum's collection represents the history of British collecting taste since its founding in 1753. Over this time span, many important collectors have played a pivotal role in the development of the British Museum's South Asian collection. Through various acquisition methods, a number of illustrated manuscripts, albums, and photographical archives have been acquired for the museum's permanent collection. This development has coincides with the growing reference collection in the Department of Asia Library. With changes in collection practices, there is a growing question about the appropriateness of audio-visual and multimedia acquisitions for both the museum and the Department of Asia Library. A select history of the South Asian collection is presented alongside the development of the research collections and exploration into digital repositories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 23 - 30
Copyright
© ARLIS, 2019 

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Footnotes

This article has been adapted from a longer paper given at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Asia Conference, New Delhi, India, 2018.

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