Planning for the Long-Term Sustainability of The Treasury of Lives Encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and The Himalayan Region

FAIN: PW-259060-18

Treasury of Lives, Inc. (New York, NY 10011-5510)
Alexander Patten Gardner (Project Director: July 2017 to March 2021)

A Foundations planning project for preservation of and access to a digital biographical encyclopedia that documents the lives of prominent religious and cultural leaders of the Tibetan/Himalayan region from the 11^th to the 20^th centuries.  Planning would address improvements in data management, editorial standards, search optimization, and public engagement for the online encyclopedia.

The Treasury of Lives is seeking a Foundations grant in order to plan for the long-term sustainability of our open access born-digital biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia and the Himalayan Region. Working closely with consultants, experts in their fields of Library Science, Data Science, Geographic Information Systems, and the Humanities, the team will develop a robust framework for data discovery, cataloging convention, categorization, and searching, while also planning for long term storage and preservation of the growing resource that is accessed by 6000 users monthly. Based on the knowledge gained over the grant period, the project will culminate in a discussion of how similar organizations can work together to create unified standards and share knowledge. The proposed project will be carried out over 18 months and consist of regular meetings with specialists who will collaboratively assess our current systems and make recommendations for protocols going forward.

Associated Products

The Treasury of Lives (Web Resource)
Title: The Treasury of Lives
Author: Alexander Gardner
Author: Tenzin Dickyi
Author: Catherine Tsuji
Abstract: The Treasury of Lives, on-line and in active development since 2007, implemented a variety of improvements based on the recommendations and advice of NEH supported consultants.
Year: 2007
Primary URL: http://www.treasuryoflives.org
Primary URL Description: The Treasury of Lives remains an open access resource. To date, 1190 biographies have been published, written by 103 contributing authors.
Secondary URL: http://www.treasuryoflives.org/map
Secondary URL Description: The Treasury of Lives launched a new dynamic map in February 2019 with the guidance of NEH supported consultant Wangyal Shawa. The new map is significantly faster and features multi-lingual search functionality and filtering. The "clustering" feature was replaced with a curated hierarchy of place name labels.

Treasury of Lives Guidelines & Style Sheet (Report)
Title: Treasury of Lives Guidelines & Style Sheet
Author: Alexander Gardner
Author: Tenzin Dickyi
Author: Catherine Tsuji
Abstract: The Treasury of Lives revised Guidelines & Style Sheet describes the standards required for biographical essays that are published on the resource. Intended primarily for contributing authors, these expanded guidelines provide detail on formatting, style, content, sources, licensing, workflow and change management.
Date: 10/31/2019
Primary URL: https://treasuryoflives.org/uploads/standards_documents/226e0-Treasury-of-Lives-Guidelines-&-Style-Sheet.pdf
Primary URL Description: Active link to PDF file of Guidelines & Style Sheet is accessible from the RESOURCES page (easy navigation from RESOURCES on main menu).
Access Model: Open Access

The Treasury of Lives Phonetic Principles (Report)
Title: The Treasury of Lives Phonetic Principles
Author: Alexander Gardner
Abstract: The expanded and revised Treasury of Lives Phonetic Principles and Transliteration document provides information on the system used to transliterate Tibetan words. A chard of equivalents and examples and exceptions are provided, along with explanatory text.
Date: 10/31/2019
Primary URL: https://treasuryoflives.org/uploads/standards_documents/4abb8-Treasury-of-Lives-Phonetics.pdf
Primary URL Description: The Treasury of Live Phonetic Principles document is accessible from the RESOURCES page (easy navigation from RESOURCE menu item on all site pages.
Access Model: Open Access

Terms, Privacy Policy (Web Resource)
Title: Terms, Privacy Policy
Author: Staff
Abstract: The Treasury of Lives Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://treasuryoflives.org/terms
Primary URL Description: Terms of Use for The Treasury of Lives
Secondary URL: https://treasuryoflives.org/privacy
Secondary URL Description: Privacy Policy for The Treasury of Lives

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