Abstract:
A survey of the palm-leaf manuscript collections was carried out in order to find out
the maintenance, present physical condition, problems relating to the preservation and
conservation of the collections, the ancient and modern preservation and conservation
methods that applied to safeguard the manuscripts from flaws, and the available
preservation programmes and user attitudes of above factors in Sri Lanka.
The concentrations of the largest collections of palm-leaf manuscript in Sri Lanka are
the Department of National Museums, University of Peradeniya and Department of
National Archives. 10% of each collection was selected as sample of the study and a
simple random sampling method was applied. Altogether, 717 manuscripts were taken
to study the physical condition of the collections. The environmental conditions of the
repositories were observed by using a record sheet. Further, a questionnaire was sent
to all heads of the departments and librarians to identify the existing administrative
problems. User attitude test was also carried out in order to find out the attitudes
regarding the usage, maintenance and preservation of palm-leaves. Data analysis was
done by using SPSS, Binomial Distribution and ANOVA between group and within
group variability.
The survey of visual observation and the viva-voce interviews revealed the following
findings of the study.
