The setting up of the archive has involved two years of research and laborious investigation of subjects, contents and material types in the Dr. Lotika Varadarajan Research Collection. The material has been archived and curated into themes. Archives of Indian Maritime Community Traditions is the first of the thematic collections to be accessible online. 

 

The process involved in putting together of the archive was administered at primarily two field sites - Dr Lotika Varadrajan's study room and at Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) in Ambedkar University Delhi. The physical material was first surveyed and the different material types within the collection were examined. The created material - especially photographs, slides, manuscrpit papers, research and field diaries and published material - were digitized and listed. The acquired material - reference books, photocopies, objects, maps - were catalogued in an accession list. The process of digitizing and cataloguing has been ongoing. 

 

The team involved in putting together the archival collection has involved a dedicated set of researchers, students and consultants. The team that made the setting up of the Lotika Varadarajan Ethnographic Archive possible are: 

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Dr. Lotika Varadarajan, chief advisor and mentor to the project, without who's pragmatic foresight and academic insight, the collection couldn't have been documented and archived.

 

Surajit Sarkar , advisor and curator for the Dr. Lotika Varadarajan Archive and Coordinator at Centre for Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University Delhi.\

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Ranjani Prasad , chief archivist and curator for the Dr. Lotika Varadarajan Archive and Research Assistant at Centre for Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University Delhi.

 

Larah Rai, Research Consultant, Textiles collections for the Dr. Varadarajan archive.

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Faisal Rehman, Research Consultant, Maritime tradtions for the Dr. Varadarajan archive.

 

Digitization assistants : Sanjana Sarkar, Aman, Priyanka, Monica Teotia, Vishal Kumar, Himakshi, Priyanka Kumar, Ankit Prasad, Lakshya, Jitendra, Shayan, Sreoshi, Chitra, Minakshi, Sneha Abraham, Gulshan and Abhay, most of whom have been students at Ambedkar University Delhi. Their dedication to digitization tasks is responsible for creating the bulk of the digital data. 

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Team CCK and friends of CCK, including Anoushka Mathews, Farah Yameen, Parul Malik, Kumar Unnayan, Cheryl Jacob, Dharitri Narzary, Prof. Vijaya Varma and Prof. Sanjay Sharma (Director, Centre for Community Knowledge) who have taken interest in the activities of the archive, supported, encourgaed and contributed to the archive as it was taking shape.

 

Pushkar and Pankaj, house help at Lotika Varadarajan's house, who have diligently helped and taken care of the archiving team. Their coffee and cake kept the team going. 

 

Archana Shastri, Shubha Chaudhari, Dr. Sangeeta Kaul, Prof Pierre Yves Manguin, Prof Ranabir Chakravarti, Samuel Berthet, Dr. Suresh Babu, Prof Jatin Bhatt and many of Dr. Varadrajan's colleagues for having given valuable expert advise on the processes involved in building the archive.