My Journey in the online OKI Summer Internship 2026: Working on Santali Public Domain Literature

My Journey in the online OKI Summer Internship 2026: Working on Santali Public Domain Literature

I am currently enrolled in the Summer Internship 2026 organized by Open Knowledge Initiatives at IIIT Hyderabad. The internship focuses on digitizing and documenting public domain literature in various Indian languages. I have been assigned the Santali language, which has been both an exciting and challenging experience for me.

We are currently in the second phase of the internship. During the first phase, our primary task was to identify and collect detailed information about books that are in the public domain for our respective languages. This involved searching for old publications, verifying authors and publication years, and gathering bibliographic details carefully.

For Santali literature, the work was particularly challenging because information about older books is often scattered and difficult to access. Many publications are rare, and proper records are not always available. Despite these difficulties, I successfully collected details of more than 50 books, including magazines, literary collections, and other important works related to Santali language and culture.

This achievement has helped me understand the richness and historical depth of Santali literature. It also showed me how important preservation and documentation are for indigenous and regional languages.

Now, in the second phase of the internship, our focus has shifted toward writing book reviews of the collected works. From this stage onward, I will be writing reviews of Santali books and literary materials. I am looking forward to exploring these texts in greater depth and sharing insights about Santali literature with a wider audience.

I am grateful to the organizers and mentors of the internship for providing this valuable opportunity. Thank you.