Dharamshala: The Department of Religion and Culture, Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), held a virtual meeting with representatives from around 100 monasteries and 5 cultural centres as part of its Tibetan Digital Library Initiative on 26 and 27 December 2023.
The main objective behind this two-day web conference is to promote understanding among the participants of CTA’s Tibetan Digital Library Initiative and curation of antique Tibetan religious scriptures and paintings as per cutting-edge approaches.
Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the incumbent Kalon (Minister) of the Department of Religion and Culture, along with Secretary Chime Tseyang and Additional Secretary Kunga Gyaltsen, addressed the webinar.
The head of the department’s Culture Section, Dhondup, updated the virtual meeting attendees on the initiative’s progress and process, while the project’s dealing staff, Tsomo, presented an overview and the future steps of the Tibetan Digital Library Initiative. Karma Gongde, the head librarian of the Buddhist Digital Resource Centre, and Geshe Lobsang Monlam, the director and CEO of Monlam, discussed the organisation and cataloguing of digital libraries, respectively.
The virtual meeting was convened as a result of regular correspondence between the department’s concerned staff and its associated monasteries over the past two months. Staff were also dispatched to settlements in Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Gangtok, and Dehradun to deliberate about the project with monasteries.
-Report filed by Department of Religion and Culture, CTA