Thank you for considering supporting Milli’s work! Everything Milli does is for nurturing archives in the country. It is a non-profit foundation, and relies on public support to make its work possible. Please do consider supporting this movement, and help build, nurture and sustain our collective memory through accessible archives.
Donation Link for Milli’s Open Access Projects
If you are unable to make a financial contribution, and can volunteer expertise, advice or time, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at hello@milli.link
The Milli Archives Foundation is a non-profit network of archives and archivists dedicated to building, nurturing and sustaining archives across India. It is a Section 8 non-profit company with 12A and 80G tax exemptions under the Income Tax Act of India. Contact us at hello@milli.link if you need additional details.
Why Milli?
Archives occupy a critical place in society. But every day across India, priceless archives — letters, photographs, oral histories, and rare manuscripts — are being lost. Neglect, poor storage, climate damage, and lack of funding mean that once these materials vanish, they are gone forever. Our collective memory is at stake.
What every archive and archiving project needs is a platform that can guide how to build, nurture and sustain this heritage.
That is exactly what the Milli Archives Foundation is set up to do. We aim to build preservation and access guidelines, offer training in archival methods and standards, how-to manuals, and open access archiving tools. Memory matters, and Milli is here to help. Your support will go a long way in realizing, building and protecting a diversity of archives in India. Join us in realizing, building and protecting our collective memory in the form of accessible archives.
What does Milli do?
Milli works with individuals, families, organizations and communities toward building, nurturing and sustaining our collective memory and records in the form of accessible archives. It has five areas of work:
- Guidelines and best practices for archives
- Open access tools and resources for archives
- Specialized archival services for tailored needs of archives
- Engaging the public to reimagine archives as part of their everyday lives.
- Training and education in archival methods, from school to professional practice
Milli also facilitates discussions around issues of diversity, archival standards, conservation, physical and digital access, pedagogy, privacy and the development of inclusive description standards. The open access digital platform that Milli is building will allow the public to find, connect, describe and share archival material and stories. It is a unique space not just in India, but anywhere in the world.
Key Areas of work, 2025-2027
-
Education: Free and open access projects that benefit public training and understanding of preserving our history (a) India’s first free and open access archival training manual (b) Free modular workshop that can be used for every archival effort, whether it is a family or a institution. (c) Curriculum projects that can be tested with by teachers in schools
-
Archival tools: Free and open access tools to benefit all archives, big and small. These include: (a) An archival health tool, for archives to self-assess and improve their quality. (b) Guidelines for understanding archives, ethics and law in India (c) Best practices and standards for digital and physical preservation of our heritage
Sample on-going open access project: Archives Health Tool
How do you measure and improve the quality of an archive? Milli is developing a free Archives Health Tool for archives across India to self-evaluate along a set of parameters, and work with a benchmarking model that allows them to strengthen their work on an area of their choice. To shape and advise this work, Milli is drawing on the input of over 15 member archives from across India (see https://milli.link/about for more details on the Milli Member Network).
We are working together on the first draft in the form of a detailed survey to assess each other’s archives. Then we aim to work together to refine the tool and take it for a test-drive in person and during visits. Should an archive measure itself based on the structure of its archival material? Perhaps it wishes to be sized by its workflows and policies. Should it look at diversity in its sourcing or uses, or both? How does it balance the rights of various constituents: creator, donor, community, archive, funder, researcher, audience? Is public engagement central to the archives as commons, as third place? How does one place increasing diversity in all measures? The Archives Health Tool is available for every archive, big and small, to assess and improve as they see fit. We hope the public will also nudge archives toward trying the tool out to improve their favourite archive, and get us all closer to archives.
The project is the first of its kind in India, and a free tool to benefit every memory institution – whether it is a personal almirah, or a state archive.
A little more about who runs Milli and what we have done?
We conceptualized and maintain the country’s first and free open guidebook on archives, ethics and law: https://milli.link/ethics-law/. Over the years, our free-to-public Milli Sessions covering every aspect of archiving (https://milli.link/milli-sessions/), have had thousands of participants from across India and other countries, and 40+ partnering institutions.
The Milli Archives Foundation has three serving co-directors: Venkat Srinivasan (Head, Archives at NCBS), Maya Dodd (educator and professor at FLAME University), and Jaya Ravindran (Retired Assistant Director, National Archives of India). Its open access projects are shaped and advised by the Milli Member Network, a set of 20+ archival organizations and archivists who have come together to advise and shape free-to-public archival projects that will benefit all archives in India.
