Shechen Archives Shechen Archives is located in the Tsering Art School building on the grounds of Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. The archive is housed in a climate-controlled room where it will not be damaged by dust and dampness. The Archives shelters rare texts, paintings, photographs and negatives. These are preserved and catalogued for the use of scholars, practitioners and teachers throughout the world. In the adjoining Archive Office, photographs and manuscripts are catalogued and collected, CD ROMs are burned, and research is conducted.Safely stored in the archives is a collection of several hundred ancient manuscripts and xylographic prints and rare original Tibetan texts. Original thangkas and small miniature paintings that are essential for ceremonies and scholarly iconographic research are also housed and preserved. Photographic Archives Included in this collection are twelve thousand color negatives of miniature paintings (tsagli). Most of these were photographed in Tibet between 1985 and 1989. The original negatives are now duplicated and are easily available for further copying when needed. Prints made from these negatives are in constant demand by other monasteries and are of great interest to scholars. (See selections from this collection at www.himalayanart.org) Shechen has one of the richest collections of photographs of Tibetan art and culture: over one thousand original slides of thangka paintings, statues and precious objects, as well as thousands of slides of monasteries, holy places, and portraits. These were taken over the last thirty years in Tibet, Bhutan, India and Nepal, and newly found photographs are constantly being added. In order preserve them for the future they must be digitally. This extensive work is slowly progressing. The Archives also houses over 150 hours of film and video of Tibetan ceremonies, great teachers, cultural life, and people. Preservation of Audio Recordings Three hundred hours of teachings given by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche are protected within the Archives. These rare talks cover major aspects of Buddhist philosophy and practice and are irreplaceable. They were recorded on 90' audiocassettes, and many of them are old and deteriorating. They need to be transferred onto other media such as CD ROMs. Funding is still needed for this preservation project.