Ongoing Projects

| Completed Projects | Ongoing Projects |

2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 |

2026

Noolaham Digital Library Collection Development 2026

Project Number	NF/PG/2026/0001	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Noolaham Foundation
Project Mentor	Pathmanaba Iyer Rathina Iyer	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2026
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This is an annual project undertaken by Noolaham Foundation. Under this project, documents lent and gifted to Noolaham by writers and collectors of documents, documents gathered via the various projects conducted by Noolaham, documents that were left out during previous projects conducted by Noolaham and documents that need to be added to the existing collections and multimedia documents are documented in 2026.

• Ongoing

Regional Documentation - Batticaloa

Project Number	NF/PG/2026/0002	Grant Agency / Donors	Maanudam Foundation	Project Owner	Dr. Kanagalingam Sugumar
Project Mentor	Nilanthi Senthooran	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2026
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project presents Phase I of a comprehensive regional documentation initiative covering the entire Batticaloa region. The primary objectives of this phase are to scientifically define the historical significance of the region, identify priority themes, personalities, and institutions for documentation, establish sustainable partnerships with local institutions and community leaders, and lay the foundation for a long-term (5–10 year) “Batticaloa Digital Heritage Roadmap”.

• Ongoing

2025

Folks Songs of Eastern Sri Lanka

Project Number	NF/PG/2025/0006	Grant Agency / Donors	University of Toronto	Project Owner	Thamilini Jothilingam
Project Mentor	Thamilini Jothilingam	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2025
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Orality plays a vital role in Sri Lankan Muslim communities, especially in preserving and transmitting religious knowledge, storytelling, and poetry. These oral traditions blend local languages with Islamic teachings, enriching the community’s cultural identity and showcasing its adaptability. In Eastern Sri Lanka—covering Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Ampara—diverse landscapes complement a rich cultural heritage. The region has long been home to vibrant traditions, including unique rural folk songs and the enduring literary practices of Eastern Tamils.

• Ongoing

2024

Noolaham cloud storage solution

Project Number	NF/PG/2025/0002	Grant Agency / Donors	Aravanai	Project Owner	Balarajan Balasubramaniam
Project Mentor	Balarajan Balasubramaniam	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2025
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

The current size of master files / raw data is around 160 TB, and it is growing around 50 TB annually. These files are in TIFF format. Currently there are 40 hard disks with these master files. Therefore, Cloud shall be the best option to store those files with global access. Noolaham is open to choose any Cloud providers who could serve us well in a cost effective manner.

• Interim Report
• Ongoing

History of Medicine Collection in Northern Sri Lanka

Project Number	NF/PG/2024/0002	Grant Agency / Donors	Prof . Sreeharan , International Medical Health Organization (IMHO)	Project Owner	Noolaham Foundation
Project Mentor	Dr.Sugumar	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2024
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project assists to expose the importance and value of the history of Medicine Collection to society. Generally, people do not know the importance of history in their culture and life. This project will provide great awareness about Medicine Collection in Northern Sri Lanka and will document the major players. events and ideas that played a role in the evolution of the healthcare services in Northern Sri Lanka.

• Interim Report
• Ongoing

2022

Next-generation AI-based Ecosystem for Noolaham

Project Number	NF/PG/2022/0005	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Prashanth Sirinivasan	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2022
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project aims to complete a plan for the project on large scale annotation, storage and analysis of Sri Lankan Tamil content. This is relating to the field of semantic culturomics in which researchers data mine large digital archives to investigate cultural phenomena reflected in language and word usage. The project consists of a language pre-processing layer, language resource layer, processing resource layer and finally a knowledge engineering component which all forms an AI-based ecosystem for analysing Noolaham foundation’s content. The plan would consist of creating detailed proposals for a number of sub-projects involved in each of these layers.

• Interim Report

• Ongoing

Digitization at Jaffna Public Library 2022

Project Number	NF/PG/2022/0003	Grant Agency / Donors	Manitha Neyam Trust	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Thayanthan Thirunavukkarasu	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2022
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham Foundation has already documented some documents from Jaffna Public Library in the past. This project aims to document all the magazines and newspapers available in Jaffna Public library which have not yet been digitized with the intention of long term preservation and usage.

• Interim Report
• Ongoing

2020

Open Education Resource 2020

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0009	Grant Agency / Donors	Face	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan	Project Locations	Jaffna	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

This project will be carried out as a continuation of the projects that were undertaken earlier to collect, document, digitize and provide open access to documents that are used for learning and teaching purposes in schools. These earlier projects aimed to support schools and the larger community in their educational pursuits. The documents that were collected, documented, digitized and made open access included documents available in Tamil that had already been made open access in Sri Lanka and other related documents for which permission was obtained. Descriptions of the documents composed in line with the standards followed by Noolaham Foundation were attached to the documents that were made available to the larger public

• Interim Report - 2025
• Ongoing

Vaasihasalai 2020

Project Number	NF/GP/2020/0008	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Shaseevan Ganeshananthan
Project Mentor	Rathina Iyer Pathmanaba Iyer	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham has been documenting newspaper and magazines from 2005 to date. As part of this initiative, some of the early newspapers and magazines that emerged from the Tamil-speaking communities in Sri Lanka were documented. As continuation of this initiative, it has become an important activity of Noolaham to document newspapers and magazines that are published today. A special feature of this initiative is that contemporary newspapers and magazines are digitized and made available to the readers within a short period of time from their publication. An objective of this project is to provide the readers the ambience of a library in the virtual space. Among the written documents that have a wider reach among the masses newspapers and magazines are important. They attempt to influence the thinking of the masses. We cannot undervalue the role played by newspapers and magazines in the past in the developments that took place in religious, social, political, economic and international spheres. Newspapers function as primary sources in the writing of history. In light of these roles newspapers have played and continue to play, it is important to collect and preserve them for the benefit of the future generations. This is an important initiative in the area of documentation. The Vaasikasalai Project is important to the historical existence of the Tamil speaking communities. This project can support the creation and preservation of a living culture of newspaper reading.

• Interim Report - 2025
• Ongoing

Early Tamil Works

Project Number	NF/PG/2020/0004	Grant Agency / Donors	Noolaham Foundation	Project Owner	Natkeeran L Kanthan
Project Mentor	Mayooranathan Ratnavelpillai	Project Locations	Sri Lanka	Project Period	2020
Stakeholders	Staff and Volunteers of Noolaham Foundation

Noolaham Foundation has undertaken an initiative called “Old Documents Related to the Tamil-speaking Communities” in order to catalogue, preserve and provide access to documents about the Tamil speaking communities in Sri Lanka published before 1925. Initiatives such archive.org and hathitrust.org have made available in the public domain publications from Sri Lanka and information about those publications. The Jaffna Protestant Digital Library that Noolaham collaborated with another group provided a catalyst to this initiative.

• Interim report 2025
• Ongoing