Education Germany Project #9256

Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

by Berzin Archives e.V.

Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

Project Report | Nov 30, 2020
Berzin Archives Report: September through November 2020

By Dr. Alexander Berzin | Founder and Author of Berzin Archives

The Buddhist grottoes at Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou

We’ve had another busy and productive three months here at Study Buddhism. As we approach the end of the year, we have started to look back to see what we’ve achieved so far, as well as how we can improve in the future. We are happy that, despite the extraordinary year the world has experienced, we have continued to work hard at developing our website and bringing the Dharma to our readers, viewers, and listeners across the globe.

We’ve also worked to broaden the scope of our horizons. This quarter, we’ve released our first interview with a Muslim teacher, in this case, Dr Imtiyaz Yusuf. Dr Yusuf is Associate Professor and coordinator of the Islam and Buddhism Program at The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and provided interesting insight into Islamic-Buddhist relations in a series of videos which have proven very popular. We have also prepared for release our second interview from Dharma Drum Mountain, one of the world’s largest Chinese Chan Buddhist organizations. We premiered Abbot Guo Huei’s interview back in the summer, and soon we’ll be ready to release the interview videos of Venerable Chang Zao, the Director of Dharma Drum Mountain Malaysia.

As usual, our teams of translators have been busy translating content into our 30 languages, producing a stunning average of 11 translations every single day, with the number of subtitle files translated up more than 100% compared to the same period in 2019. All of this is having a positive effect with visitors, both to our Studybuddhism website and our various social media channels, continuing to grow. Our YouTube channel recently surpassed 21,000 subscribers, and every day we inch closer to 50,000 followers on Facebook. You’ll find more details in the bulleted list below.

Here are some of our accomplishments over these last three months:

Translation and addition of 584 new articles
Translation and addition of 440 subtitle files
Copyediting of 75 English articles
Transcription of 10 audio files
Adjustment and expansion of tagging feature for articles
Program, design and addition in the English section of a pop-up window feature with definitions of technical terms
Program, design and addition of team photos and statistics feature on the About Us pages
Creation of a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan
Implementation of SEO recommendations for redirects for external links
Improvement of the management of our hosting server and database
Design and creation of a new, updated About Us page, featuring photo sections for our main staff and teams of translators
Design and construction of statistics icons on the About Us page, providing a clear overview of our content and followers across the website and social media
Search Engine Optimization improvements of backlinks for the old Berzin Archives website
Editing of 13 videos of an interview with Tashi Mannox, acclaimed Dharma artist and Tibetan calligraphy expert.
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Tashi Mannox.
Subtitling of 13 videos of our interview with Geshe Dorji Damdul, a distinguished Buddhist scholar, who is currently serving as the director of Tibet House, the Cultural Centre of H.H. the Dalai Lama, based in New Delhi, India.
Editing of 11 videos of an interview held at Drum Drum Mountain Taiwan with Venerable Chang Zao, a Chan Buddhist nun and the Director of Dharma Drum Mountain Malaysia.
The transcription of the above-mentioned interview, which was in Chinese, and the translation of this text into English.
The creation of Chinese and English subtitles for the above-mentioned interview with Venerable Chang Zao.
Releasing on our YouTube channel of 9 videos of an interview with Dr Imtiyaz Yusuf, Associate Professor and coordinator of the Islam and Buddhism Program at The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

All of this hard work is made possible by your continuing generous support. Together, we shall “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All.”

Links:

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Sep 2, 2020
Berzin Archives Report: June through August 2020

By Dr. Alexander Berzin | Founder and Author of Berzin Archives

A Buddha statue surrounded by fireworks.

Over the summer, our team of translators, editors, content creators and web specialists have been hard at work producing material in our 31 languages and making important improvements to the website. As the coronavirus crisis continues to develop across the world, we are more focused than ever in bringing much-needed Buddhist wisdom to our growing audience.

And in fact, at the end of August 2020, we reached a momentous milestone in our history: 10,000 articles live on our website. Through the steadfast efforts of Dr. Alexander Berzin over the last half a century, along with the efforts of countless individuals over the last 20 years, Study Buddhism has helped to promote the precious Dharma teachings of Tibet, making them widely available in 31 languages and preserving them for future generations. We are excited to bring the next 10,000 articles to you!

Our social media channels have continued to see fast growth over the summer, especially as we started to share non-English content. During the month of June, we implemented a weekly post from our Essentials section in 31 languages, targeting the posts to particular countries and linguistic regions. The project was a great success, with our content reaching 5.8 million people on Facebook, engagement up over 600%, and our Facebook following increasing by 5,000 people in June alone.

Our translators and editors have prepared 572 new articles and 650 new subtitle files, working out to an amazing 14 new translations completed every single day. For our YouTube channel, we’ve prepared 59 new videos, taken from 4 interviews, and we are about to release our channel’s first interview with a non-Buddhist teacher: Dr Imtiyaz Yusuf, an expert of Islamic-Buddhist relations, as part of our work to foster harmonious relations between these two large religious groups. You’ll find more details in the bulleted list below.

Here are some of our accomplishments over these last three months:

Translation of 572 articles
Translation of 650 subtitle files
Transcription of 12 audio files
Copyediting of 138 English files
Tagging and re-editing of tags of 1480 English articles
Programming, creation of user interface and online implementation of tags for English articles
Creation of tag editing in the content management system
Programming, creation of user interface and online implementation of related articles feature for all 10,013 articles in the 31 languages of the website
Creation of related article editing in the content management system
Re-editing of user interface for the internal search engine in all 31 languages
Creation of administrative interface in the content management system for redirects for changed urls of articles in all 31 languages
Programming for automatic usage of native numerals for articles in the Burmese and Marathi section
Editing of 14 videos of an interview with Venerable Guo Huei, the Abbot President of Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan, one of the world’s leading Chan Buddhist organizations
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Venerable Guo Huei
Editing of 16 videos of an interview with Sulak Sivaraksa, activist, professor, writer, and early pioneer of engaged Buddhism.
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Sulak Sivaraksa
Editing of 16 videos of an interview with Dr Imtiyaz Yusuf, Associate Professor and coordinator of the Islam and Buddhism Program at The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Dr Imtiyaz Yusuf
Editing of 13 videos of an interview with Geshe Dorji Damdul, a distinguished Buddhist scholar, who is currently serving as the director of Tibet House, the Cultural Centre of H.H. the Dalai Lama, based in New Delhi, India.
Weekly posting of articles from our Essentials section in 31 languages on our Facebook page (4 articles in 31 languages = 124 articles) during the month of June.

All of this hard work is made possible by your continuing generous support. Together, we shall “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All.”

Links:

Permalink

Jun 3, 2020
Berzin Archives Report: March through May 2020

By Dr. Alexander Berzin | Founder and Author of Berzin Archives

Tabo Monastery in Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh.

Firstly, all of us at Study Buddhism hope that this message finds you and your loved ones in good health. Despite the unprecedented and uncertain time that the whole world is undergoing, the Study Buddhism team has, in their respective homes, been working hard to try and bring even more Buddhist wisdom to our growing audience.

Our social media channels have seen exponential growth during the last three months, with follows, views, and engagement across the channels up approximately 50%. In order to take advantage of this increased interest and to promote our new language sections, over the month of June we will be boosting one article from our Essentials section each week on Facebook, targeting specific regions and languages.

We have now published our ten new Asian language sections – Sinhala, Burmese, Lao, Khmer, Thai, Korean, Tamil, Marathi, Nepali and Bengali. We are now able to offer the ageless wisdom of Tibet in 31 languages to people in all corners of the world.

Our translators and editors have prepared 635 new articles and over 600 new subtitle files, working out to an astounding 14 new translations completed every single day! On YouTube, we’ve published 50 new videos, taken from 3 interviews, and we are preparing to release our channel’s first non-English interview with Chan Buddhist master, Venerable Guo Huei of Dharma Drum Mountain. You’ll find more details in the bulleted list below.

Here are some of our accomplishments over these last three months:

Translation of 635 articles
Translation of 620 subtitle files
Prepared the interface, slug transliteration for urls, fonts, native numeral support, and ordered lists for our 10 new language sections. We then published these new language sections.
In cooperation with the Private Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama, translation, publication and Facebook promotion of 4 Messages from the Dalai Lama in our 31 languages
Transcription of 18 audio files
Copyediting of 153 English articles
Editing of 14 videos of an interview with His Eminence Dagyab Rinpoche, the spiritual director of Tibet House Germany and one of the Gelug tradition’s highest tulkus
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with His Eminence Dagyab Rinpoche
Editing of 14 videos of an interview with Telo Tulku Rinpoche, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader of the Kalmyk people, and the honorary representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Russia, Mongolia, and the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Telo Tulku Rinpoche
Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of 22 videos of an interview with Dr Murray Corke, a Clinical Teacher at the University of Cambridge's Department of Veterinary Medicine and a Zen Buddhist teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh
Preparation of a Chinese transcription of an interview with Venerable Guo Huei, the Abbot President of Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan, one of the world’s leading Chan Buddhist organizations, and the subsequent translation of this into English
Editing of 14 videos of the above-mentioned interview with Venerable Guo Huei
The creation of a four-week social media plan for Facebook, to introduce basic Buddhist articles and share these with our global users in their own language. This has been translated into our 30 languages and the initial post, “What is Buddhism?” has been scheduled for the first week of June.
Creation of a custom Lao font
Creation of a custom Khmer font
Site adaptation for Khmer, Lao and Burmese fonts
Transliteration with word segmentation in Khmer, Lao and Thai for slug urls of the articles
Native language name shows on mouseover for Other Languages feature
Custom language names in English, Mongolian, Tibetan and Punjabi
Predefined homepage panel for Dalai Lama messages
Fixed joint character issues in Tibetan, Urdu and Punjabi scripts
Fixing of Google Search Console errors
Reissuing of our expired SSL certificate

All of this hard work is made possible by your continuing generous support. Together, we shall “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All.”

Links:

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