A Jain Library Steps Gingerly Into the 21st Century

With its intricately carved marble walls, a Jain library known as the Gitarthganga Institute possesses an air of timelessness. It is tucked on a leafy side street, far from the shriek of car horns and auto-rickshaws that dominate the streets of this busy city in the western state of Gujarat.

But there is something decidedly 21st-century going on behind those walls. Gitarthganga is undertaking a massive enterprise — digitizing all its books and texts, some of which date back 150 years.