Reprography in India - a Status Report
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REPROGRAPHY IN INDIA - A STATUS REPORT K S NAGARAJAN Regional (entre. ln s doc, Bangalore·12 Surveys the reprographic facilities available in the linguistic re -organisation of the States of India. The role of lnsdoc and a few other organisa- India) located at Poona. For some decades tions in providing such facilitie s for the benefit of now this department has been concerned with science is highlighted. It is pointed out that in some the photographic reproduction of title deeds cases lack o£proper advice on the choice of equipment and other legal documents vouching for owner- to suit the exact needs has resulted in inadequate use ship and transfer of landed property, buildings of even limited facilities. Recent progress in the indigenous production of equipment and materials is and other real estates within the State of also taken stock of. Some suggestions are made re- Maharashtra. This service is somewhat garding training of technicians in reprography and unique, as no other state government in India standardization of reprographic matters. appears to have set up a regular photographic reproduction service as an adjunct to the de- partment dealing with the registration of As in several fields of industrial pro- documents. An old Photostat machine is still gress and technical advancement, in the field going strong at Poona rendering useful service of reprography also India is waking up. Until to sellers and buyers of property and litigants. about 10 years back there was not even a keen awareness of the potentialities of and the need In some of the states (for example the for reprographic techniques and applications, State of Bihar, at its capital in Patna), the in the vast fabric of academic, industrial and Accountant General's Office has got a photo- econonUc life in the country. Of course, there graphic facility to provide copie s of official have been significant exceptions, where some documents and to assist in the records manage- institutions, mostly under governmental aus- ment in the area of auditing and fiscal control pices, have been making extensive use of of governmental expenditure. reprography. Example s are the Insdoc (Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre) under Perhaps the oldest organized reprogra- the Council of Scientific 8. Industrial Research phic set up under the auspices of the Govern- and the National Archives of India, under the ment of India, is in the National Archives of Ministry of Education. What follows is a India, under the Union Ministry of Education. rather sketchy history of the development of No other organization, governmental or pri- reprography in India. vate, has reached the volume of microfilming work that is being handled in the National Recent History of Reprography in India Archives. The National Archives of India has a continuous programme of micro-recording. Governmental involvement with repro- This unit with a battery of Recordak cameras graphy has been in connection with the follow- and ancillary equipment and a team of trained ing activities/departments: Archives, scientific technicians can look forward to decade s of documentation, re gistration of title deeds, useful service; the National Archive s have yet financial audit, tourist traffic, census opera- to put on microfilm a vast portion of the state tions, public sector industries, etc. records of this century, particularly a great bulk of documents that have been created Government or ganisations after independence. One of our earliest government depart- The Ministry of Comme rce and Industry ments to use reprography was the ~ had, until the early 50's, what was called the Registry of the Government of Bombay (now 'Aciininistrative Intelli~ce Room'. This unit the State Government of Maharashtra, after had both Photostat and microfilming equipment Vol 14 No 4 December 1967 195 NAGARAJAN to provide reprographic facilities rnairrlv to the 5 Copycat, large format vacuum contact parent Ministry and also to other government printer, made in UK. departments at New Delhi. This unit has since been disbanded with the equipment getting 6 Contoura, portable contact printer relocated, partly with the Photo Litho wing of with an air cushion, accessory for the Government of India Press and partly with ensuring good contact with small the National Archives. bound volumes, made in USA. 7 Develop (Dr Eisbein),developing unit The Department of Tourism installed for diffusion transfer materials, around 1959, diffusion-transfer type of pro- made in Germany. cessors with contact reflex copiers at major ports of entry for copying of tourist cards 8 Reading devices for micro-records: containing data on incoming foreign tourists a) Thomson-Houston brand with to India. built-in opaque screen, made in France. Role of Insdoc, New Delhi b) Microvist - portable reader (with collapsible arms for the projection- It was not until 1952 that an organised mirror), made in Germany. and well equipped reprographic service, c) Kangaroo reader, made in France. accessible to a wide range of clientele, carne d) Microcard reader - for reading, to be established as part of the activities of by episcopic projection, opaque the Indian National Scientific Documentation micro-cards, made in USA. Centre (Insdoc), Insdoc was set up as an unit 9 Enlarger with point-source lamp by under the Council of Scientific & Industrial SFMD, made in F:rance. Research, in New Delhi, with generous assis- tance from UNESCO, under an agreement 10 Azoflex K-IO diazi!l"printer, made by between that international body and the Govern- Ilford Limited, UK. ment of India. The assistance took the form 11 Hunter-Penrose process camera, of gift of a range of reprographic equipment; made in UK, along with infra-red the services of experts in scientific documen- film -drying cabinets. tation, reprography and translation; and fellow- ships to some of the Indian staff members of 12-14 ~otaprh1:t offset printing machine the Insdoc. This writer was the recipient of made in UK, along with ancillary one of the UNESCO fellowships, and he had the equipment for plate -making and plate- opportunity to visit the USA and Europe during exposing. 1954-55 to study the reprographic techniques then prevalent in the advanced countries. With The above basic equipment has been a team of technicians, many of whom had som~ supplemented, from time to time, with other previous experience of technical photographic gadgets, which include: a Rolleiflex, a Leica work and who were given the proper orienta- M-3 with a battery of lenses, a second tion and training on reprographic techniques, Reprovit unit (Model lIb), a Recordak Micro- the services of Insdoc gained momentum film camera model AH-5, Recordak projection during the 1950's. printer Model B with point-source illumination, an Ilford strip film printer (for making dia- The equipment obtained from UNESCO positives of individual diagrams and technical comprised: illustrations) and four more offset printing machines (one Zetaprinton and three Romayors, Lectra -II microfilming camera, all made in Czechoslovakia). manufactured by Tokyo Micro-Photo Works, Japan. With this array of equipment collected, 2 Leitz Reprovit -I, made in Germany. under one roof, it was possible to render reprographic services (mainly of scientific 3 Lumoprint - rewind type motorized documents) to the scientific, technical,' engi- film developing unit, made in neering and medical communities, for the Germany. first time in India. During the past 15 years the services have grown tremendously. Thougb 4 Microtronics - positive film printer, in the early stages a majority of the clientele made in USA. 196 Ann Lib Sci Doc REPROGRAPHYININD~ were from academic and research institutions, £) special high quality reproductions by in recent tirnes a number of industries and contact printing of high contrast business houses have started making regular negatives on lith-type film obtained use of the reprographic services of Insdoc , on a process camera of complicated The bulk of the services comprises furnishing diagrams, having a wealth of detail, of readable photocopies on paper (hard copies) for inclusion in bio-medical disser- closely followed by microfilms in strip form. tations. Papers from scientific and technical articles published in a plethora of periodicals comprise The above types of reprographic work the bulk of the requests; patents and standards give a broad cross -section of the variety of (national, fo;eign and international) and theses work demanded of and met by Insdoc's ser- submitted for award of higher degrees of vices. major universities in and outside India are also being serviced. Insdoc Centre, Bangalore Besides furnishing of cppre s of specific scientific documents demanded by clients, In 1964 a regional offshoot of Insdoc was Insdoc also undertakes to produce various set up in collaboration with, and in the campus kinds of reprographic versions of documents of the Indian Institute of Science, a 60-year- brought in by clients. A few of these may be old premier institution of advanced scientific reprints or the author's copies of original learning and research in India. The decision papers but a majority of requests are for the to establish this Centre was part of a plan to reproduction of meta-documents, presenting set up three or four such units in different a wide variety of problems which are challeng- re gions of the country to supplement the ser- ing to the skill, experience and ingenuity of vices being provided from the main centre at the reprographic personnel. New Delhi. The choice of locations was to be guided by the availability of rich collections of a) Either magnification or minification scientific literature, mainly periodicals, of illustrations to produce dimensional spanning a range of disciplines, languages and variants, are required, mainly for countries of origin as well as the depth or sending along with paper s for publica- extent of collections going back to several tion or inclusion in theses; years.