museum

As like any other means of mass communication, ‘Printing’ has already established its existence as a very important and dependable means of mass communication. In each and every activities of our day to day life, we observe the trace of printing which has become a very dependable and essential part of modern human civilisation.
Although, printing has almost recorded all the great inventions and discoveries and memorable events of the world, unfortunately, it has not yet printed and recorded clearly its own invention and history. There are lot of controversies arisen about birth of printing and what we are getting from the history, most of them stand on the basis of assumptions.
Initially, human civilisation was communicating through oral conversation only and were memorising the important memories and events. Gradually, when they tried to record and preserve their memories, important events and happenings, the need of printing came into existence. Starting from writing on sands and muds, gradually with the development of human civilisation, the concept of transfer of image or any text from one surface to another gave birth to the basics of printing.
In the pre-historic period, trace of printing can be witnessed from black clay model at Babylon during 3000 BC. The basic idea of printing or transfer of image from one surface to another was introduced in China during 868 A.D. But, the 15th century is known as the golden era of printing with the invention of movable metal types by ‘Johannes Gutenberg’ during 1454-55 A.D. in Germany who is also known as the ‘Father of Printing’.
Through ‘Odisha Printing Museum’, just an attempt has been made with some important collections of old and ancient printing and allied machineries to give a glimps on chronological development of printing starting from old Letterpress process of printing to the most updated digital printing.
The Location:
Odisha Printing Museum is located at the bank of river Kathjodi and on the east of National Highway No.5 and is functioning in the premises of Odisha Govt. Press, Madhupatna, Cuttack-10.
The Collection:
Odisha Printing Museum is displayed with some ancient and old printing and allied machineries on the basis of the chronological development of printing technology. It is divided into various galleries viz. Composing gallery, Letterpress Printing gallery, Pre-Press gallery, Offset Printing gallery, Binding gallery, Workshop gallery, Modern developments, etc. Mainly the machines and items displayed have been collected from Odisha Govt. Press, Cuttack and its Branch Presses located at different places like Bhubaneswar, Bolangir, Khandapara, Keonjhar etc. Apart from the machines, many information relating to different kinds of printing have also been collected and displayed for information of visitors.