Explore Neel Agrawal’s projects center on South Asian history, ethnomusicology, and civil and human rights.
Education: Masters of Library & Information Science (MLIS) from University of Washington, Juris Doctor (JD) and BA from Michigan State University.
South Asia Open archives (SAOA)
From 2016-2021, Neel managed the South Asia Open Archives (SAOA), a free online collection of South Asian research materials. By Fall 2021, there were over 800,000 digitized items in the collection. SAOA piloted JSTOR’s Open Community Collections.
AFRICAN DRUMMING LAWS
While serving as the Global Law Librarian at Los Angeles Country Law Library (LA Law Library), Neel discovered over 100 colonial laws throughout Africa regulating and criminalizing drumming. An interactive research tool is available at africandrumminglaws.org. Neel collaborated with the UCLA World Music Center, received a fellowship from the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, and obtained funding from LexisNexis for this groundbreaking research.
DIGITAL ARCHIVEs Worshop in Sri Lanka
Led a workshop on "Digitization Initiatives for Collections of Historical Material in Sri Lanka" organized by the American Institute for Lankan Studies (AILS) held on the 25th of January, 2019. Attended by officers from the Dept. of National Archives – Sri Lanka, researchers and digital archivists from the Samkathana Research Center, University of Kelaniya, Main Library of the University of Colombo, Open University of Sri Lanka, Noolaham Foundation, and AILS.
ResearchING Dalit rights - SASA 2023
Presentation on “Researching Dalit Rights” for the 2023 South Asian Studies Association (SASA) Conference, hosted by Loyola Marymount University. Special thanks to Professor Christopher Chapple at LMU (Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology; Director, Master of Arts in Yoga Studies).
Indian Percussion: An Overview
Presentation for Professor Divine Gbagbo’s "Introduction to World Music” class at the Loyola Marymount University Department of Music on October 27 and November 1, 2022. Provides an overview of North Indian and South Indian percussion concepts, including time cycles, rhythmic counting, and compositional forms.
Digital preservation presentation at U virginia
Presentation on digital preservation for a mini conference hosted by the Center for Digital Editing at University of Virginia on September 27-28, 2023.
LEVERAGING DIGITAL ARCHIVEs For South Asian Studies Research - SASA 2022
Presentation on “Leveraging Digital Archives for South Asian Studies Research”, conference program, and certificate for the 2022 South Asian Studies Association (SASA) Conference, hosted by Loyola Marymount University. The conference featured a pop-up exhibit on South Asian artifacts, hosted by Archives and Special Collections at the LMU William H. Hannon Library. Special thanks to Professor Christopher Chapple at LMU (Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology; Director, Master of Arts in Yoga Studies).
researching asian law - los angeles daily journal
Brief article titled “Researching Asian Law: overcoming the common challenges”, published by the Los Angeles Daily Journal on October 23, 2013.
Training in fcil librarianship for tomorrow’s World - law library journal
Article titled “Training in FCIL Librarianship for Tomorrow’s World” (2013), published by Law Library Journal, explores core competencies in foreign, comparative, and international law librarianship based on a survey of information professionals in the field. This influential article was the winning entry in the student division of the 2012 AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers competition. It has been cited by in “Law Librarianship in Academic Libraries: Best Practices” (Dina, 2015) and “Law Librarianship in the Twenty-First Century” (Balleste et al, 2013).
