How India’s food crisis nourished America’s library collections

The program was interested in amassing a comprehensive collection of Indian fiction in all languages. “Politics has accumulated a large number of detective stories and novels of no lasting value,” Patterson said.

In 1963, the selection for book acquisition was reduced to “research-level material” and the acceptance of fiction in many languages ​​was halved. By 1966, more than 750,000 books and periodicals had been sent to American universities from India, Nepal, and Pakistan, while India had contributed more than 633,000 books.

“We have sent works such as History of India from 1000 to 1770 AD, Handicrafts in India, Hindu Culture and Personality: A Psychoanalytic Study and many more.” report, external In 1967, the program was discussed at a meeting in a US library.

Todd Michelson-Ambelang, a librarian for South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wonders whether extensive collections from the region in the United States and other Western libraries have borrowed literary resources from the Indian subcontinent.

Founded during Cold War tensions and funded by PL-480, the university’s South Asian center grew its library to more than 200,000 books by the 21st century.

Mr Michelson-Ambelang told the BBC that removing books from South Asia through programs such as PL-480 “creates knowledge gaps”, as researchers there often have to travel to the West to access these sources.

It is unclear whether all the books that US universities bought from India at that time are still there. According to Maya Dodd of India’s FLAME University, many books now unavailable in India can be found in the University of Chicago’s library collections, all of which bear the “PL-480” stamp.

“For the most part, the books that came through the PL-480 program are still available in South Asia. But preservation is often difficult because of white ants, pests, and lack of temperature and humidity control. In contrast, most materials are well preserved thanks to preservation and conservation efforts in our Western libraries.” kept,” says Mr. Michelson-Ambelang.