Dutch Records Project Tamil Nadu Archives (Chennai, India)

Nowadays, not many people are aware that for about two centuries the Dutch were closely involved with the Indian subcontinent. The Dutch East India Company ( VOC) established trade factories in Malabar, Coromandel, Surat and Bengal. When the Dutch left India, the archives of the four VOC establishments were handed over to the British. Currently, these records can be found in the Tamil Nadu Archives (TNA) in Chennai. Created in India, at a relatively low level of the VOC administration, they are distinctly different from the materials drawn up or received in the Dutch Republic or Batavia. Therefore, most of the 1763 volumes of Dutch Records are unique.

As a considerable part of the material is damaged, the TNA, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in India and the Nationaal Archief joined forces to safeguard the contents of these documents. During a month, employees of the TNA and the Nationaal Archief worked side by side to prepare the Dutch records for digitization. Next to cleaning, labeling and boxing this involved identifying and mending of the volumes too fragile for scanning. The next step will be on site digitization of the documents by a local company, which will be funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy.

OBJECTIVES
Cleaning, identifying, boxing, labelling of the Dutch Records at the TNA.
Scanning of the Dutch Records at the TNA which are unique.
Mending of unique Dutch Records which are too fragile for scanning.

RESULTS
ca. 1800 volumes boxed Dutch Records.
Scans of the Dutch Records which are unique (about 2/3).
Mending of unique Dutch Records which otherwise could not have been scanned.
Training of colleagues at the TNA in cleaning and boxing of records.