About the Archives
The Archives at NCBS (https://archives.ncbs.res.in/) is a public centre for the history of science in contemporary India. Over 250,000 processed objects across 30+ collections are in various forms, ranging from paper-based manuscripts to negatives to photographs, books, fine art, audio recordings, scientific equipment, letters, and field and lab notes. The 2000-square-feet state-of-the-art physical centre at NCBS includes space for research, processing, exhibitions, recording, and a leading-edge storage facility with monitors for temperature, light, humidity, air quality, water, fire, pests, and noise. The holdings include the papers of the ornithologist, Ravi Sankaran, and the molecular biologist and co-founder of NCBS, Obaid Siddiqi. They include papers of TSG Sastry, a physicist who worked on the Thumba rocket programme, Leslie Coleman, an early 20th century agricultural scientist in Mysore state, and the renowned agricultural scientist, MS Swaminathan. The Archives has one underlying philosophy—of enabling diverse stories—and operates on four broad verticals. One is to strengthen research collections and access in the history of science in contemporary India. The second is to push the frontiers of research in archival sciences in India, forging intersections with scholarship in law, ethics, information theory and the semantic web, for instance. The third is to build capacity and public awareness through education, training and programming, from high school to professional practice. And the fourth: to reimagine the archives as part of the commons through vibrant public engagement. The Obaid Siddiqi Chair in the History and Culture of Science is generously supported by TNQ Technologies. And much of the work of the Archives at NCBS is supported by TNQ Technologies and Arcadia. The reading rooms are open to the public and researchers without prior appointment. However, you may need an appointment to review the archival holdings. For queries, please visit https://archives.ncbs.res.in/contact
Download the overview brochure of the Archives at NCBS
Download 'The Silverfish', Issue 1, August 2024, a magazine produced by the Archives at NCBS!
Resources
Resource forms and access policies in the Archives
Access and Use
Deed of GiftTeam
Various technical teams from across NCBS – civil, architecture, electrical, IT, instrumentation, hospitality – helped conceptualize and build the physical structure of the Archives at NCBS. The archiving team (see list below) has been a crew of about 100 students and professionals working in short stints between 2016 and 2024: archivists and historians, journalists and writers, scientists and administrators and librarians, students of sociology, engineering, history, photography, the sciences, marketing, education, and architecture and design. The Archives is governed by a guiding Archives Policy, an internal Archives Review Committee and an external advisory board. The Archives has had generous assistance from the archivists and conservators at various centres in Bangalore, across India and around the world.
2023-2024 team: Abhijith AV, Aditya R, Aiswarya S, Anjali JR, Anjana T, Carol Daniel, Deepika S, Dhatri S, Divij Joshi, Diya Shah, Gouri A, Hannah James Louwerse, Hari Sridhar, Janani AS, Joseph Jose, Meera K, Megha Ramachandra, Meghal Bansal, Mohammed Sinan, Nandita Jayaraj, Nayanika Shome, Ojas Kadu, Parvathy V, Prashant Kumar, Preeti Shree Venkatram, Ravi K Boyapati, Raza Kazmi, Samira Agnihotri, Samyamee Sreevathsa, Sanjna GY, Sindhu Nagaraj, Soumya Swain, Sravya Darbhamulla, Twisha Sangwan, Venkat Srinivasan
Archives Review Committee, 2024-25 (Internal):
Anjana Badrinarayanan
Archishman Raju
LS Shashidhara
Shashi Thutupalli
Uma Ramakrishnan
Venkat Srinivasan
Vidhyalakshmi M
Archives Review Committee, 2024-25 (External):
Anne-Flore Laloe, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)
Aparajith Ramnath, Ahmedabad University
Indira Chowdhury, Centre for Public History
Mariella Soprano, Caltech Archives (Chair of Committee)
The Archives at NCBS (https://archives.ncbs.res.in/) is a public centre for the history of science in contemporary India. Over 150,000 processed objects across 24 collections are in various forms, ranging from paper-based manuscripts to negatives to photographs, books, fine art, audio recordings, scientific equipment, letters, and field and lab notes. The Archives has one underlying philosophy—of enabling diverse stories—and operates on four broad verticals.
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Archives enable diverse stories. This statement serves as a guiding principle for us through the workflow of historical records – sourcing for material, archival judgment and accessioning policies, understanding context and arrangement, preservation/conservation, and physical and digital access. In late 2016, when we started the endeavour to build a new archive, we wanted to deliberate on the purpose of an archive and what environments it could nourish in the future.
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Collaborations
The Archives at NCBS is working in partnership with a variety of organizations across India and the world. These collaborations include efforts to standardize archival description, build shared digital catalogues, and develop narratives from archival material.
Picture credit: Ravi Kumar Boyapati
Funding
The Archives is based at the National Centre for Biological Sciences. NCBS is a centre of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, autonomous under the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India. The Archives has been made possible from a mix of government funding and external grants. The Obaid Siddiqi Chair in the History and Culture of Science is generously supported by TNQ Technologies. And much of the work of the Archives at NCBS is supported by TNQ Technologies and Arcadia. TNQ Technologies is a global leader in scientific, technical, and medical publishing (STM publishing). Arcadia is a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded more than $1 billion to organizations around the world.
