The Zoological Survey of India has completed 100 years since it was first established and to celebrate this venerable milestone, the organization has decided to digitize all its data. As part of its modernization project for which a budget of Rs 25 crores has been earmarked, the organization has started archiving its natural history and animal specimen records in digital format.

This expansive collection of information will be accessible to the public at the click of a button through the website of the Zoological Survey of India. It owns roughly 4 million specimens of zoological interest. The body also boasts of a humongous repository of manuscripts, books, aging illustrations, photos and various publications related to natural history. The oldest book presently in its possession was printed in 1547.

Director Dr K Venataraman says that digitized data from the 19th century until today is ready to be uploaded to the organization’s official website, as reported by PTI. Apart from being stored at the Kolkata headquarters, the documents are also being kept at 16 regional centers across India. Another big advantage of putting the records online is expected in the form of citations by reputed international research journals.

At present, it is time consuming for scientists to include the Zoological Survey of India’s information in their papers since they need to ask the body for a copy of the necessary documents. Making the content easy to access will iron out this problem. The research body was established on 1 July 1916 in order to encourage surveying, exploring, researching and documenting important details on the classification of animals.

It comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Currently, the Zoological Survey of India claims to have digitized almost 4,500 publications amounting to over 3,00,000 pages.