Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1985,'32(1-2), 50-53

EXTINCT AND ENDANGERED INDIANSCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS

Periodicals have been publishing in Indiafor the last two hundred years. During thisperiod, about seven to eight thousand scientificserials are estimated to have been published.Of these, some are already extinct and someare on the verge of extinction. Measures tobe taken to preserve the near-extinct periodi-cals have been discussed.

The founding of the Asiatick Society ofCalcutta in 1784 by Sir William Jones andabout 30 British intellectuals ushered in an eraof modern scientific research in India. TheAsiatick Researches, the organ of the Society,as well as the first periodical to be publishedfrom India, was started in 1788. The periodicalpublished learned contributions on all fieldsof knowledge including contributions in science,and thereby it achieved the distinction ofbecoming the first periodical in India to publishscientific contributions.

Pasvavali, a Bengali monthly, started pub-lishing from Feb. 1822 by the Calcutta SchoolBook Society, is the first scientific periodicalpublished from India, scientific in the sense thatit was devoted to animals. We shall discussmore about this periodical later.

The decade of 1820's saw the birth of afew more scientific periodicals, i.e. Transactions,Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta (1825-45), Transactions of the Agricultural and Horti-cultural Society of India (1829-41), and Glean-ings in Science (1829-31).

Eversince, the growth of Indian scientificperiodicals has been steady. Presently, the num-ber of current Indian scientific periodicals in-cluding Annual Reports of scientific institutionsand organisations, is above 2,000.

The total number of scientific periodicalsincluding Annual Reports published in the

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country during the long span of about 200years in English and regional languages is in theorder of seven to eight thousand.

Of these periodicals, there are many whichseem to have become extinct. References hereand there provide evidence as to the existence ofthose periodicals in certain period of time. Buttoday, there is no trace of any copy or anyissue of that periodical anywhere in the world.

Dr. G. Bhattacharyya, a naturalist fromBengal, seems to have contributed a p:::.pcrinthe journal called Wild Life published fromAgra in 1930's. But no library holding of Indiaand abroad indicates the presence of this journaltoday.

In the Friend of India of November 14,1850, p.731, there was an announcement,which reads as below -

"A New Medical J ournal, The undersignedproposes to re-establish a Medical Journal,having the title of Bengal Medical Record, fromIst Jan. 1851. or 2nd of each succeeding month,and the subscription per annum is 20 rupees.Early intimations of approval and support arerequested from all, who are of opinion, a Medi-cal Journal in Bengal may be productive orgood".

T. Hastings, Civil Asstt. SurgeonEast Burdwan.

N.B. - "All Communications to be addressed,postpaid, to the Editor, at Burduian".

There is no trace of this periodical alsoanywhere in India and abroad. It is not known,whether the periodical was published- at all, orceased after the publication of an issue orseveral issues.

Such examples are plenty in the case ofregional language scientific periodicals of India.Many periodicals which published in the 19th

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century or even in this century are extincttoday. Why is it so difficult to establish?There may be several reasons for this

i) In many cases, librarians never found themworth subscribing.

ii) Scientists did not evince much interest inthem. Even today this is so.

iii) Librarians also did not treat them pro-perly specifically which they received free.It may be mentioned that periodicalsreceived free are not to be accounted forbefore the audit party.

These periodicals were mostly in the pri-vate collection of individuals where they wither-ed away with the passage of time.

Unless something radical is done, regionallanguage scientific periodicals will continue tomeet the same fate.

There are quite a few periodicals, copiesof which are available not in India but abroad.A few examples of such periodicals are:

i) Forecast. of the Bajri Crops, Department ofAgriculture, Bombay 1923/24-?

ii) Forecast of Bhadoi Crops, Department ofAgriculture, Bihar and Orissa. Patna 1913-?

iii) Forecast of the Castor Seed Crops, Depart-ment of Agriculture, Bombay, 1924/25 -?

There are periodicals, only a few issues orincomplete run of which are extinct. In otherwords they are near-extinct.

In this category also, a very large numberpertains to regional language periodicals.

As discussed earlier the first regionallanguage scientific periodical published fromIndia is Pasvavali i.e. Animals. The periodicalpublished under the sponsorship of the Cal-cutta School Book Society. John Lawsoncollected the description of animals fromvarious English books and W.H. Pearce trans-lated them into Bengali .. It was a monthly andeach of its issues was devoted to a particularanimal. The periodical stopped publishing withthe 6th issue following the death of JohnLawson.

It was again revived by R C Mitra some-time before 1834 and 16 more issues were

Vol 32 Nos 1-2 March-june 1985

published. The first six issues were printed in1828 in the form of a book also.

Only a few issues of the journal are re-ported to be available in a personal collection.

Such examples are also not lacking in thecase of English periodicals.

The Madras •.Quarterly Medical Journal canbe cited as an example. During 1839-44, 6volumes of the journal were published. Only theMedical College Library, Calcutta is having thefirst five volumes of the journal of which vol. 4is incomplete. No library seems to possess the6th volume.

Home and Homoeopathy - This periodicalwas the organ of the Bengal Allen Homoeo-pathic Association and published from Calcutta.Only vols. 6-8 published during 1930/31-32/33are available in the National Library, the onlylibrary possessing this periodical. It is notknown how many volumes of the periodicalwere published, or when did the periodicalstart or stop. Similar is the case with Homoeo-pathic Directory Vols.2-3 (1921-22), Homoeo-pathic Outlook 14-25 (1954-65) and manyother Homoeopathic periodicals.

In this category itself, there are periodicalswhose incomplete run are being held by severallibraries. If those libraries cooperate, easilythey can have the complete run of the same.For example, 7 issues of Hyderabad GeologicalSeries Bulletin were published during 1937-1950. One library is having the first six numbersand another library is having the nos. 2,4,5,and 7. If both the libraries cooperate, easilyboth of them can have the complete set.

In some cases, only partial constructionwill be possible. For example, in all, 37 vols. ofCalcutta Journal of Medicine were publishedduring 1868 to 1919. At present, no library ishaving the complete run. Only fragmentaryruns are avilable in different libraries. Taking theholdings of all the libraries, one can have volumesnos. 1-3 (complete) 4 (incomplete), 5-8 (corn-plete), 11 (complete), 13-18 (complete), 21-23(complete). No library is having volumes Nos. 9-10,12,19 and 20.

For the construction of the complete run,at times, we may have to take the help of someforeign countries as well. Three scientific periodi-cals were published from Goa in Portuguese.

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Archiuos de Escola Medico-Cirurgica de NovaGoa, SeT A No.1 (1927)-34(1961), Ser B Nos.1-23, (1927-51) and Boletim Sanitario. 1-5, 1916-20. Our country does not seem to possess thecomplete set. It is likely that some libraries inPortugal will possess them. Taking help of thoselibraries India can also have the complete set.If nothing worthwhile is done towards theirpreservation, the near-extinct periodicals caneasily become extinct in feture.

There are some ceased periodicals, the com-plete run of which are still available just in oneor two libraries of the whole country. I wouldcall this as endangered category. Examples are

Bengal Agricultural ] ournal 1-6, 1921-26Atomic Energy Abstract. Nos. 1-23Bombay Medical Joumall-5(2), 1932-36.

Libraries ill most cases are not aware thatsome of the periodicals which they are possess-ing in their collection are endangered. That iswhy there is every need to make them aware ofthis fact so that they can take the necessarycare of these.

MEASURES NEED T'J BE TAKEN

While determining the extinct, near-extinctand endangered category of Indian scientificperiodicals, the ftrst prerequisite is the compila-tion of a comprehensive list of all Indian scienti-fic periodicals started publishing from 1788,which has been done by me for the period1788 to 1965. It is probable that I have missedsome extinct and other periodicals.

The compilation of a list of extinct periodi-cals is really a difficult task. Sources are very

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scanty ana scattered. Reterences to tne ex-tinct periodicals are available in the BookReviews portion of many journals and news-papers. Here also, regional language periodicalshave mostly been reviewed in the publicationof the respective regional language 43]one. So,language barrier poses a formidable problem.

Scanning of the references given at the endof articles is another tiresome method, andfraught with the danger of committing seriousmistakes. Because, in the references the placewherefrom a periodical is emanating is at timesnot given. Periodicals like Indian Journal of

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Physz'cs, ..Ayuruedlok can easily be identified asIndian. Identification again, therefore, Doses

•.• J.

ploi)lems in case titles are like Gasoil, Him-alyan. Geology, and Modern Fibres.

Another important source of identifyingthe extinct periodicals is the gazette. TheCopyright Act was passed in 1867 and there-after the gazettes of various places like BombayGazette and Calcutta Gazette recorded thepublications. There is no index to the gazettesand as such every issue needs careful scanning.Even from the gazette, at times it becomesquite difficult to identify a scientific periodical.

Books and articles on the history of sciencemany a time dwell on periodicals.

Some enthusiasts have done a commend-able job in this direction. One great exa rnpleis Brajendranath Bandopadhyay. To compilea list of Bengali periodicals and newspaperspublished till 1867, he trotted throui;houtBengal, visited all librarie-s and all importantpersonal collections and thus· pres::;-'lt,.,~ thecountry witn the most comprehensive list ofBengali newspapers and periodicals :.,1 his BangleSamayikpatra. Such examples are not alwaysavailable in other Indian languages. Neela-rneghan's work on the development of medicalperiodicals and medical societies in India alsodeserve mention. Some Ph. I), work has alsobee;-: done and a few more al.,. .;",_lbg on. I!_ isnot known to what extent the,,'·wi1Y deal withthe extinct periodicals.

A pertinent question arises here. Whatshould be our policy towards apparently e.x nnctperiodicals? If the policy is not to botheraboutthem any more, there is then no need to tracethem. If on the other hand, the policy is totrace them first in literature and then physically,then of course, a completely different course ofaction will have to be taken. The way of com-piling the list has already been discussed. Oncethe list is prepared. they may be advertised inpaper, if some of them are in existence, theymay come to light.

Collection of rare documents is a regularactivity in the Soviet Union. Every year peopleengaged in the job visit different parts of thecountry. Advertisements appear in the news-papers and other mass media. Quite a numberof rare documents of value are collected in this

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process and the person donating the document isalso rewarded.

Similar course of action can also be follow-ed in our country.

For other types of periodicals discussedif we want to preserve them, or construct thecomplete run wherever it is possible, or informthe libraries to protect the near-extinct orendangered periodical, a central body is needed.If some existing libraries undertake the job, it iswell and good. Otherwise a body needs to becreated for the purpose. The body may beentrusted with the responsibilities mentionedabove. In addition, it may keep in microformor any other suitable media the copies of allperiodicals that need protection.

The number of sci-tech libraries in ourcountry today is quite high, in addition there isthe National Library as well as the NationalScience Library. So it can be expected thatthe periodicals of research value will be takengood care in future and hence there will be lesschance of their extinction. Even popular sciencemagazines in English like Science Today andScience Reporter are subscribed by many lib-r:mes of the country and as such they havelittle fear of becoming extinct.

The problem remains with the regionallangu.age periodicals. They have started comingou~ In large numbers. Who are going to sub-scnbe and preserve these?

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According to the Delivery of Books Actof 1956, the 4 libraries in India are to getcopies of all periodicals free of charge. In reality,it is not happening. The deposition of periodi-cals to these libraries as reflected in the IndianNational Bibliography speak of innumerablegaps. An agency in each state may be given theresponsibility of procuring each regional langu-age scientific periodical emanating from theState. Certain libraries, societies etc. may beselected and given the responsibility. For ex-ample, Kerala Bhasha Institute in Kerala can bemade responsible for Malayalam periodicals,Assam Science Society for Assamese, BangiyaBijnan Parishad for Bengali and so on. Alongwith the entrusting of responsibility, theyshould also be properly funded to do the job.

No organised attempt has so far been madein the country to preserve or protect the rareor near-extinct periodicals. If action is takeneven now, many valuable documents can besaved. We are, no doubt late, but it is betterlate than never.

REFERENCES

1. Bandopadhyay, Brajendranath: Bangla samayik-patra. New ed, 1948.

2. Nee1ameghan, A: Development of medical so-cieties and medical periodicals in India 1780 to1920. Calcutta: IASLIC, 1963.

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