Using the Archive

A searchable full inventory of the Archive can be found here.

The physical Sajjad Zaheer Archive is currently in the custody of the Ambedkar University Delhi. Some materials were unable to be digitized due to intellectual property rights but should be available for consultation through the AUD. The entire digital Sajjad Zaheer Archive is preserved and accessible from the Center for Research Libraries. A pre-digitization finding aid (Part One and Part Two) created by Daastaan Media Communications provides the intellectual organization of the archive and established the digital file naming conventions used in the CRL repository. Seeking more nuanced access to individual items in the collection, a refined, searchable and sortable full inventory was created post-digitization in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. This site encourages the use of the full inventory spreadsheet both for nuanced research and for direct links to items in the collection. The archive is entirely open access.

Using the Full Inventory

All items in the online Sajjad Zaheer Digital Archive are documented in the full inventory. Users can use the inventory to efficiently browse the collection. Items are described and sortable by:

  • CRL ID Number
  • URL for direct access
  • Daastaan Inventory Number (correlates to the pre-digitization finding aid)
  • Item type (letter, telegram, manuscript, etc.)
  • Number of images
  • Language
  • Author of the item (if known)
  • Addressee or other named person in the item (if known)
  • Captions, titles, letterhead
  • Date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
  • Other notes
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Accessing and downloading individual items from the CRL website

Each “item” is stored as a separate file on the CRL website. Direct links to individual items are found in the full inventory (see green arrow in example below). This is the most convenient way to access items in the collection.

One can also navigate to items in the collection from the CRL record for the collection. Click on “Connect to https://dds.crl.edu/crldelivery/31526” to access the collection (example below).

Once a document is selected, one can move from page to page in a multi-page document using the arrows at the top (see red arrow in the image below). To download a document, click on the file download button (indicated by the blue arrow below).

last update: 16 June 2023