321 DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, Vol. 40, No. 5, Sept 2020, pp. 321-325, DOI : 10.14429/djlit.40.5.15822  2020, DESIDOC Received : 18 May 2020, Revised : 20 September 2017 Accepted : 28 September 2017, Online published : 04 November 2020 Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access of Heritage Knowledge in India: A Review Akhlak Ahmad and Swadesh Sharma School of Humanities and Social Sciences, G.D. Goenka Univeristy, Gurgaon - 122 103, India Email: akhlaqa@yahoo.com AbStRAct India is an ancient country and its literature in the form of manuscripts is as rich as its culture. These heritage resources need to be documented and preserved by digitizing and securing them for future generations and also to make them accessible to the larger audience. This paper reviews scholarly literature and analyses it to understand the application of standards for digitisation, access, and preservation in the digital process by Indian institutions. Further, it explores the feasibility of establishing of national standards for sustainable digital preservation and retrieval of heritage resources across the country. Keywords: Digital preservation of heritage resources; Digitisation standards; Metadata standards. 1. IntRoDuctIon Heritage knowledge is the legacy that is inherited from the past; it is represented through oral history and written communication in the form of songs, poems, paintings, stories, philosophical ideas, etc. 1 These heritage resources were at times documented and recorded on stones, clay tablets, woods, palm leaves, papers, and also on various metals, etc. It is the responsibility of the cultural society to preserve its history and culture and make these resources accessible rests with society. Galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) are collecting, selecting, and managing heritage resources 2 . The current study focuses on heritage resources such as manuscripts, rare books, and other material housed by selected Indian libraries and archives. India, being one of the oldest civilisations, has a vast reservoir of ancient heritage knowledge resources written in various languages and scripts, which have been passed down for generations. Serious and efective initiatives have been taken to collect, manage, and archive these heritage knowledge resources which are scattered across the country. India also has one of the largest and oldest collections of manuscripts in the world. These heritage resources are available across the country in heritage institutions and personal collections 3 . It is estimated that the country has a collection of over 5 million which have been catalogued so far, and over 60,000 are available in European countries. Additionally, over 1,50,000 manuscripts are available in South Asia and other Asian countries 4 . These valuable heritage resources are spread across the country and most of them are not in a good condition and face a threat of extinction in the absence of proper archiving. For that, they need to be identifed, documented, preserved, and made accessible to the research community. But to make these heritage resources accessible has become the biggest challenge for organisations while undertaking collection, preservation, and dissemination of these information resources. Every single usage or manual handing makes these rare and vulnerable resources more fragile 5 . Therefore preservation and making them accessible are the main challenges faced by the archival institutions. To achieve these objectives, they have to preserve not only the analog information resources but also digitise them and preserve them, along with the digitally born documents. Digitisation and digital preservation are diferent processes that require diverse methods to be followed for the preservation 6 . 1.2 background and objectives This objective of this study is to understand the current practices of the digitisation of heritage resources in India with existing available knowledge. It analyses quality literature that provide a foundation to the research question i.e. sustainable digital preservation of Indian heritage resources. A number of online databases were queried that provided the access of a wide range of information resources but not limited to journal articles, conference proceedings, theses, monographs and books etc. The review starts with the identifcation and introduction of heritage resources and then looks at initiatives taken for their digital preservation using established standards and protocols. It reviews the digitisation projects carried out by the Indian heritage organisation to highlight the success and also challenges faced by the information professionals while adopting new information communication technologies (ICTs) as they change rapidly. Further, it attempts to answer questions why standardisation and uniformity in digitisation process are necessary and what are the existing standards and protocols available for digital