The Research Division is comprised of the Manuscripts Section, the Oral History Section, the Research and Publications Section and the Reprography Section.
The Manuscripts Section collects and preserves the private papers of distinguished individuals who, and records of non-official institutions, associations and societies that played a significant role in the freedom struggle and the development of modern India. More than a thousand precious collections which run into more than five million pages are preserved here in 24,000 boxes. The growth of this division is an ongoing process as it keeps acquiring the private papers of institutions and eminent Indians and new collections from different parts of the country.
Some important collections are the Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, a collection of Mahatma Gandhi's papers contained in the Pyarelal Papers, Mridula Sarabhai Papers, Rajaji Papers, Jayaprakash Narayan Papers and those of/about Vinoba Bhave, Dadabhai Naoroji, Bhulabhai Desai, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, M. N. Roy, Sri Prakasa, Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, Amrita Pritam and Rameshwari Nehru among others. There are institutional papers too of the All India Trade Union Congress, All India Congress Committee, All India Hindu Mahasabha, All India Women's Conference, Home Rule League, British Indian Association and All India States Peoples' Conference.
The Oral History Section contains a rich store of recordings of interviews with eminent persons, both Indian and foreign, which provide a valuable means of communication with the past and the present. Interviewees include eminent public personalities, freedom fighters, political leaders, journalists and people from other walks of life. The recording of interviews and finalization of their transcripts is a continuous process.
Transcripts of these recorded interviews contain the recollections of eminent personalities who participated in the freedom struggle or contributed to the development of the nation as also the social and political development of modern India with special reference to our struggle for freedom. These transcripts are made available to scholars for research only after obtaining the consent of those interviewed. It has been planned to publish some of them.
Currently, the Section maintains more than 8,000 spool tapes of oral history material running into more than 6,000 hours of recorded interviews in addition to over 2,700 audio spool tapes of Nehru's speeches and 800 audio cassettes of Indira Gandhi.
The Research and Publications Section monitors the ongoing research projects of our own institution and other institutions, publishes research documents and is also responsible for organizing seminars and lectures in NMML. It has sponsored and published the selected works of such important leaders like Motilal Nehru, Jayaprakash Narayan and Acharya Narendra Deva. Currently, this Section is engaged in several research projects which involve many research fellows working on various aspects of modern and contemporary Indian history, including the publication of the selected works of C. Rajagopalachari.
The Reprography Section microfilms historical documents and newspapers, both old and current newspapers and periodicals in English as well as regional languages and provides various reprographic facilities to the scholars who consult research material in our Library. The aim is to augment the research resources of the Library and improve accessibility to rare newspaper material while also effectively preserving them.
The Preservation Unit is a part of the Reprography Section which is engaged in the conservation of rare documents, using a variety of methods for preservation and upkeep of historical documents such as lamination, pasting with tissue and bond paper and binding. Restorative procedures like washing of documents for removal of patches, minor repair of documents, fumigation of library holdings and repair and recasing of bound volumes are also carried out here.
