delnetdelnet.nic.in/delnet_pdfs/neweletter/december 2004.pdfby dr. sharad l. joshi, director,...

delnetNewsletter

Vol.11 Nos. 1 & 2 December 2004

DELNET is promoted by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India and India International Centre, New Delhi.

NACLIN 2004 : A ReportM. B. Konnur*

Hon'ble Vice-Chancellor, Dr. H.K. Kaul, Dr. S. K. Patil, OrganisingSecretary, his colleagues from theJayakar Library and Dept. of Libraryand Information Science, distinguishedinvitees of this valedictory function,participants who have come fromdifferent parts of the country for thisconvention, ladies and gentlemen, Itake pleasure in presenting theNACLIN 2004 report.

The Seventh National Convention

on Library and Information Networkingon the theme "Quality Information in theInternet Era" was organised by theJayakar Library and Dept of Library andInformation Science, University of Puneand DELNET from November 23-26,2004. It was formally inaugurated onNovember 23, 2004 in the historicpremises of the DnyaneshwarSabhagriha, Main Building, with Britisharchitecture and amid the exoticambience of the dignitaries as well as the

Dr. Vijay Bhatkar speaking at the Inaugural Function

'Rapporteur-General, Former University Librarian & Head, Dept. of Library & Inf. Science,University of Pune, Pune.

highly eclectic arrangements made bythe host. Nearly 170 delegatesattended the four-day conventionwith participation from diverse parts ofIndia. The registration was opened tothe delegates from the afternoon ofNovember 22,2004 onwards.

The Inaugural Function started onan auspicious note of Sharda Stavanand Pune Vidyapeeth Geet sung by thestudents of the Dept. of Library andInformation Science along with MsAprajikta Rajendra. Dr. S. K. Patil,Organising Secretary, NACLIN 2004began the proceedings of the InauguralFunction with a warm welcome to theparticipants. It was followed by thepresentation of bouquets andmomentos to the Chief Guests. Theconvention was inaugurated with thelighting of the lamp by Padmashree Dr.Vijay Bhatkar, Chairman ETH, Puneand former Executive Director, CDAC,Pune and Dr. Shridhar Gupte, formerVice-Chancellor, University of Pune. Itwas followed by release of the pre-conference publication of NACLIN 2004and NACLIN 2004 Souvenir byDr. Vijay Bhatkar. Dr. H. K. Kaul,Director, DELNET while making hisintroductory speech presented in briefthe contributions made by DELNET inthe past two decades in modernisingand networking nearly 830 libraries inand outside the country and stressedthe need to convert library andinformation centres into knowledgecentres in the country. Dr. Kaulcategorically stated that Library

NACLIN 2004

Networks play an important role andinformation professionals have tobecome knowledge experts. Dr. Kaulalso expressed his gratitude to Hon'bleProf. A.S. Kolaskar, Vice-Chancellor,University of Pune for acceptingDELNET's invitation to hold theSeventh National Convention onLibrary and Information Networking atUniversity of Pune. He added thatlibraries are the classical resource ofknowledge.

Beginning his inaugural speech bypointing out that it was great saints likeDnyaneshwar and Tukaram whomodernised Indian philosophy, Dr.Vijay Bhatkar said that providing qualityinformation is a great challenge tolibrary and information scienceprofessionals. He added that in thepast, the prosperity of mankindtook place because of additionalknowledge which they possessed inaddition to the existing information. Heobserved that illiteracy is yet anothermajorchallenge for India since the ICTpenetration among the rural masses inthe country is not feasible due to thehigh level of illiteracy. Dr. Bhatkarhoped that in the days to come, Indiawould become the knowledgedepository of the whole world.

In his Presidential address,Hon'ble Dr. ShridharGupte mentionedthat within a short span of humanhistory, enormous progress has beenmade by mankind. He alluded to thedifficulties encountered by researchersand scholars in getting the relevantinformation before the advent of theadvanced networking tools.

The inaugural function endedwith a vote of thanks proposed byDr. (Mrs.) NeelaJ. Deshpande, Reader,Dept. of Library and InformationScience, University of Pune.

The first two days of the con-vention were devoted to various topicsrelated to the theme of the convention.The first tutorial on Search Engine

strategies was conducted by Ms SunitaBarve, Library-in-charge, NCRAand Mr.Anant Sabane, Member Facilitation Staff,Maharashtra Knowledge CorporationLimited. The tutorial covered searchingstrategies.methodologies and the variousfeatures of the search engines werediscussed in detail. The use of theBoolean operators were also taught. Anexercise was given to the delegates atthe end of the session. This session wasfollowed by lunch. The second tutorial onthe same day was taken by Ms ShubhadaNagarkar, Librarian, BioinformaticsCentre, University of Pune on Metadata.She dwelt on the need for the use ofmetadata in the libraries and explainedthe functions and types of the metadata,the various metadata elements and theuse of meta-tags in the HTMLdocumentson the Web. The delegates were providedwith an exercise on the use of themetadata tags and it was quite aninteractive session.

The tutorials were followed by a brieftalk on the services of the National Libraryof Indiaby Dr. S. Mandal, Director, NationalLibrary of India. He said that the NationalLibrary had a collection of 25 lakh booksand 10 lakh manuscripts which are rare

ones. He also informed the delegatesabout Bhasha Bhavan which wasrecently inaugurated and can house1500 readers. The automation anddigitisation plans were also highlighted.It was followed by a productdemonstration by Mr. Ashish Swant,RDG Microelectronics of 3 M LibrarySystems. He demonstrated the variousfeatures of RFID, Smart card and theACS-Automated Circulation Systems,the inventory control and the securitycontrol. The products facilitating theSelf Checks and Book Drops werealso shown by him.

The arrangements for breakfast,lunch and dinner were made at theNamdeo Sabhagriha and the variousdelicacies of Maharashtra were servedwhich were relished by the delegates.The accommodation facilities for thedelegates were made available in theguest houses of the University of Pune,NCRA, IUCAA, NIV Paschan, AgarkarInstitute and NCL Pune. Transportationfacilities were also provided.

The second day of the conventionstarted with a tutorial on "DataWarehousing and Dataminingfor Libraries" which was conducted

Dr. Shridhar Gupte, Dr. S.K. Patil, Dr. H.K. Kaul & Dr. Vijay Bhatkar

delnet Newsletter Vol. 11, Nos. 1&2, December 2004

NACLIN 2004

by Dr. Sharad L. Joshi, Director,Vishwakarma Institute ofManagement, Pune. He spoke atlength about the various datamanagement functions, databasetechnology, and the query languages ofthe RDBMS were discussed. Dr. Joshiexplained in detail the concepts of datawarehousing and data mining, types ofdata in the data warehouse, the scopeand the working of the data mining. Itwas followed by a productdemonstration by Mr. Shahji John ofEbsco Publishing, the providers of E-journals. A brief session on DELNETservices was conducted by MsSangeeta Kaul, Network Manager,DELNET and she informed thedelegates about the services offeredby DELNET. This was followed bylunch. In the post-lunch session atutorial on "Language Database" wasconducted by Mr. Mahesh D. Kulkarni,Group Coordinator, GIST. He gave anoverview of the Language technology,Generic language tools and solutions,speech technology, OCR & Imageprocessing for digital libraries, etc. Heinformed the dele-gates about the widerange of standardisation milestones.The diverse software solutionsdeveloped and provided by CDAC werealso discussed including LEAP office,

Nashir and Lekhika Word processors,ISM ISFOC Script Manager - Indix2,GIST SDK, language learning toolsincluding Lila Prabodh, Lila Praveen andLila Pragya. He also spoke about themany language technology projects beingundertaken by the Government of Indiaincluding Dware Dware Gyan Sampada- knowledge at doorsteps. The linguisticresource generation tools such asPrabandhika and Vishleshika werediscussed in addition to the Gyan Nidhiand Chitrankan, the OCR for Indianlanguages and for the Devanagari scriptrespectively. Mr. Kulkarni discussedthe localisation of mobile phones forcontent access and the pockettranslators. Some snapshots of thesoftwares were also shown. The warmmemories of participation at NACLIN2004 were captured in a groupphotograph which was taken. It wasfollowed by a product demonstration ofLIBMAN, a library management systemby E-ql Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

A special cultural programme wasorganised by the Organising Committeecalled "Golden Era" for the delegates.The delegates had enjoyed listening tothe melodious Hindi songs sung by Mr.Abhijeet and Dr. Madhuri Jogalekar. Itwas well received by the audience and

they enjoyed the ambience whichelevated the mood of the delegates toa state of joy and bliss followed bydinner.

The remaining two days of theConvention, i.e. November 25 and 26were devoted to the technical sessionsrelated to the theme of the convention.In all, seven sessions were held onvarious sub-themes including QualityInformation Management, evaluationof online information resources,information gateways, qualitycollection development in the Internetera, IPR issues and quality information,Web technology, building qualitycontent on the Web and analysis ofquality information.

The first technical session on"Quality Information Management" washeld on November 25 morning. Thesession was chaired by Dr. S. Mandal,Director, National Library, Kolkata. Dr.H.K. Kaul, Director, DELNET presenteda keynote paper on "Quality LibraryManagement: The Key Principles". Hediscussed at length the 25 principlesthat he envisaged as the principles forquality library management such as thelibraries as the centres of learning,sharing of knowledge, internationalstandards for creating quality content,creation of useful knowledge from Webresources, to mention a few. Two morepapers based on case studies werealso presented at this session. Thearticle entitled "Use of ElectronicResources by Faculty Members in Bl ETDavanagere : A Survey" written by M.S. Lohar and T. N. Roopashree waspresented by Ms Roopashree. It wasfollowed by another paper presentationby Ms Aparna R. Rajendra entitled "Useof Online Journals in University Librarieswith Special Reference to INFONET: ACase Study of the University of Pune"written jointly by Aparna R. Rajendraand Shubhada M. Joshi. An interactivequestion-answer session was held atthe end, which was followed by tea.

Prof. A.S. Kolaskar delivering the Valedictory Address


NACLIN 2004

The second technical session on"Evaluation of Online InformationResources" was held and the sessionwas chaired by Prof. M. R. Riswadkar,former Head, Dept. of Library andInformation Science, University ofPune. Dr. (Mrs) Neela J. Deshpande,Reader, Dept. of Library andInformation Science presented thekeynote paper on evaluation of I nternetinformation resources. She focusedon the need for evaluation and thevarious processes involved with theevaluation of information resourceson the Web and discussed at lengththe criteria for evaluation includinginitial appraisal, suitability of resource,content analysis, structural andpresentation of the informationresources. It was followed by apresentation by Mr. N. R. Ramdasi,CDAC Pune of the paper written jointlywith Dr. S. K. Patil, University Librarian,University of Pune entitled "DigitalResources and Quality AssuranceTechniques : Survey of SelectedEvaluation Methods on the Internet".The article discusses the variousEvaluation criteria provided by CornellUniversity, University of CaliforniaBerkeley Library, etc. It was followedby a lively interactive session amongthe delegates and the speakers. This

session was followed by a shortdemonstration of DELNET onlineservices where Ms Sangeeta Kauldemonstrated the online searching ofthe DELNET Union Catalogues. It wasfollowed by lunch.

The third technical session on"Information Gateway" was held duringthe post-lunch session. Prof. ShashikalaGangal, Head, Dept. of Electronics,University of Pune chaired this sessionand the keynote paper was delivered byDr. Sharad Gore, University of Pune on"The Deep Web : Surfacing HiddenValue" pointing out the differencesbetween the deep Web and the surfaceWeb. Prof. Gore stated that at presentmore than 200,000 deep Web sites exist.Prof. Gore mentioned that deep Web isthe largest growing category of newinformation on the Internet and apprisedthe delegates about the magnitude of thequality information available through theinvisible Web which is hidden from thesearchers. Mr.SaurabhShukla presentedhis paper entitled "In- formationCommunication Technology as a Tool forQuality Rural Development", where hediscussed the role of the ICT inimproving the lives of the rural masses inthe country. He also mentioned some ofthe innovative applications of ICT in ruralareas in Asia and Africa. Mr. Shukla

suggested a few ways of achieving anintegrated rural development approach.

The fourth technical sessionentitled "Quality Collection Develop-ment in the Internet Era" was chairedby Prof. S. G. Mahajan, FormerUniversity Librarian, University ofPune. The keynote paper waspresented by Ms Sangeeta Kaul,Network Manager, DELNET. Shereferred to the various processes beinginvolved in building up a qualitycollection development in the Internetera. She discussed the issues includingQuality vs Demand, Access vsOwnership, collection development ofvirtual collections, physical mediumand delivery mechanisms, etc andalso the need for genre specialists,retention policies, etc. This wasfollowed by a paper presentation byMs Jayashree Kanetkar on "SelectionCriteria for Free Web-basedResources" written jointly with Dr.(Mrs) Neela J. Deshpande. Mr. S. S.Prabhune, Lecturer, Dept. of CSE,SSGM College of Engineeringpresented the paper entitled "CreatingDigital Resources at SSGMCEShegaon, Maharashtra: A Case Study"written jointly with Mr. S. S. Kanthaleand Mr. U. A. Rane. The paperdiscusses the various aspects to beconsidered while establishing adigital library and was based on a casestudy. Mr. Subhash Khode, DeputyLibrarian (Incharge Library), PIMR,Indore presented the last article of thissession entitled "Print and ElectronicJournals: Advantages and Dis-advantages". It was followed by aproduct demonstration of "RFID inCampus and Library" presented byAshim A. Patil, CEO, Infotek Software& System Pvt. Ltd.

Yet another cultural programme"Sitara" was organised in the eveningfor the delegates coupled with songs,dance and comedy skit. It was followedby dinner.

Dr. S.K. Patil at the Valedictory Function


NACLIN 2004

The proceedings of the last day ofthe convention started with Session Ventitled "IPR Issues and QualityInformation". The session was chairedby Dr. Dewan and the keynote addresswas delivered by Dr. Vishal Katariya,Head, IPR Chair, University of Pune,Pune. Dr. Katariya spoke about thechallenges concerning IPR andobserved that there were somefundamental differences between theold and the new technology. The legalissues dealing with the right ofreproduction of information, right ofcommunication of information, right ofdistribution of information, fair use andfair dealing in the digital world, piracyand jurisdictional issues were alsodiscussed in detail. This sessionbecame the most interactive sessionof the convention as the library andinformation science professionalswanted to get clarifications regardingthe handling of IPR issues in librariesfrom the experts. Dr. Dewan hadexhaustive, informative discussionswith the delegates and the sessionwas extended for an additional forty-five minutes.

Session Six on "Web Technology-Building Quality Content on the Web"was chaired by Prof. I. K. RavichandraRao, Head, DRTC, Bangalore. Thefirst paper of the session entitled"Cross Platform Porting of Web-basedDnyaneshwari: A Case Study" waspresented by Shashank S. Puntamkarand another paper entitled "Designand Development of JATAN : VirtualMuseum Builder" written by Dinesh S.Katre, Shashank S. Puntamkar andJeevak Gajbhiye was presented. Thelast technical session of NACLIN2004 was on "Analysis of QualityInformation" and the session waschaired by Dr. S. Krishnan, NCL, Pune.The keynote paper was delivered byProf. I. K. Ravichandra Rao.

The last paper of the conventionpaper was presented by Ms ShubhadaJoshi entitled "Nature and Quality of

Digital Information Hunting: A Case Studyof the University of Pune" written jointlyby S. K. Patil, Priyanka Wadekar,Shubhada M. Joshi and RajendraChikate.

Dr. S. K. Patil, Organising Secretary,NACLIN 2004 delivered the Welcomeaddress of the Valedictory Functionwhich was followed by the Report ofthe Rapporteur-General Prof. M.B.Konnur, Former University Librarianand Head, Dept. of Library andInformation Science, University of Pune,Pune. He gave an exhaustive narrationof the proceedings of NACLIN 2004. Itwas followed by the Valedictory Addressdelivered by Prof. A. S. Kolaskar, Vice-Chancellor, University of Pune. Prof.Kolaskar applauded the efforts being

made by DELNET in networking thelibraries in and outside the country. Heraised a number of critical issuesconcerning the security of theinformation and its accessibility by thepublic. He said that there was a greaterneed to develop security mechanismsfor the information flow. He stressedthat besides quality, security shouldalso be considered important for imple-mentation. He reiterated the need todevelop mechanisms for the fastertransfer and searching of information.The valedictory function was concludedwith the Vote of Thanks given by Dr.(Mrs) Neela J. Deshpande, Reader,Dept. of Library and InformationScience, University of Pune. |

LIBRARY AND INFORMATIONNETWORKINGNACLIN 2004

Papers of the National Convention onLibrary & Information Networking

(NACLIN 2004)

held at

University of Pune, PuneNovember 23-26, 2004

Edited byH. K . Kaul and S. K. Patil

Price: Rs. 500/-(20% discount will be provided toLibraries)After discount - Rs.400/-[Postage and packing free]Please send your orders to:The Network ManagerDELNETDeveloping Library Network40, Lodhi Estate, Max Mueller MargNew Delhi- 110003E-mail : [email protected]

NACLIN 2005

will be held

at

PES Institute ofTechnology (PESIT),

Bangalore

from

August 22-25, 2005

Please contactDELNET

for details


ICONLIS 2004

ICONLIS 2004:A Report

H.K. Kaul*I had the privilege to organise as

Coordinator the First InternationalConference on National Library Services(ICONLIS) in March 2004 on behalf ofthe National Library, India as part ofits centenary celebrations. Theconference was organised at Taj Bengalin Kolkata from March 15-16, 2004.Participants from 23 countries includingArmenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan,China, Greece, Greenland, Indonesia,Japan, Kazakhistan, Malaysia,Maldives, Nepal, Russia, Singapore,South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK, USA,Uzbekistan and India participated in theconference. Fifty-two papers werepresented at the conference.

Welcoming the delegates, MrK Jayakumar, Joint Secretary,Department of Culture, Government ofIndia, stressed upon the need forredefining the scope and objectives ofthe National Library in view of thechanging needs of the users. Mr O PKejriwal, Chairman, National Library

Management Board observed that it wasimportant and timely for the NationalLibraries to change themselves with thetechnology. In his inaugural address, MrDhanendra Kumar, Secretary,Department of Culture emphasised theneed in formulating a concrete actionplan for the National Library. He furtherreiterated that the libraries have a greaterrole in the dissemination of information.He appraised the international delegatesabout the initiatives being taken up by theGovernment of India. It was followed bya keynote address by Ms Joan de Beer,Acting National Librarian, National Libraryof South Africa. A presidential addresswas delivered by Prof. Sujit Kumar Basu,Vice-Chancellor, Visva BharatiUniversity.

The first technical session on"National Library systems and Services"was held wherein twelve papers werepresented. The session was chaired byProf. Prabir Roychoudhary, former Head,Department of Library and Information

Mr. James Nye, University of Chicago

'Director, DELNET

Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.It included the paper entitled "Servicesof the National Diet Library of Japan :Present state and future direction" byMr Masashi Murakami, DepartmentDirector, National Diet Library, Japan,paper entitled "A new strategic directionfor the National Library of Australia" byMs Elizabeth Dracoulis, Director,Reader Services, National Library ofAustralia, Australia, paper entitled"National Libraries : a perspective for aleading role in the E-services Epoque"by Ms Antonia Arahova, National Libraryof Greece and Sarantos Kapidakis. Itwas followed by the paper presentationby Mr Sharifuddin Ahmed, Director,National Archives and National Libraryof Bangladesh entitled "BangladeshNational Library services". MrSungkowa Rohardjo, Deputy forCollection Development and LibraryServices, National Library of Indonesiapresented the "Indonesia CountryReport" and Mr C T Dorji, JointDirector, National Musuem of Bhutanpresented his paper "Role of NationalLibrary in Bhutanese society", whereasthe National Library scenario ofGreenland was presented by Ms ErikaNielsen Baadh, Head of Groenlandica(National Library - subdivision ofNational and Public Library ofGreenland) through his paper entitled"Groenlandica : past, present andfuture).". "The National Library ofMaldives" was presented by MsHabeeba Hussein Habeeb, ExecutiveAssistant Director, National Library ofMaldives. The remaining three papersin this session relating to the NationalLibrary services in India were presentedby Ms Kalpana Dasgupta, formerLibrarian, National Library, Kolkata on"Planning a National Library System forIndia", Prof. A C Tikekar, former Head,Department of Library and InformationScience and University Librarian,University of Bombay, Mumbaipresented his paper "National Libraryservices", it was followed by the lastpaper presentation of this sessionentitled "The National Library of India :need for a new strategy" by Mr PJayarajan, former Head, Library and


ICONLIS 2004

Information Services (India), The BritishCouncil, New Delhi.

In the second technical session,chaired by Prof. P B Mangla, formerHead, Department of Library andInformation Science, Delhi University,Delhi eight papers were presented onthe theme "Legislation, CollectionDevelopment and Bibliographiccontrol". The presenters included MrDashrath Thapa, Chief Librarian,National Library of Nepal who hadpresented his paper on "Legislation forNational Library Services". Mr KJayakumar, Joint Secretary,Department of Culture, Government ofIndia presented his views on "Deliveryof Books Act in India". He expressedhis concern over the lack of interestamong the publishers to deposit thepublished copies of the books with theNational Library. Dr R K Chaddha,Director, Parliament Library, New Delhipresented his paper on "The legaldeposit in changing informationinfrastructure". In the session on"Collection Development", Ms Carol LMitchell, Deputy Field Director (SouthAsia), Library of Congress presentedher paper "Acquisition policies inNational Libraries".

The next session was on"Bibliographic control". The first paperentitled "A Union Catalogue for SouthAsia" of this session was presented byMr James Nye, Bibliographer forSouthern Asia and Director, South AsiaLanaguage and Area Centre, Universityof Chicago. It was followed by a paperpresentation of Dr H K Kaul, Director,DELNET who presented his paper on"National Bibliographic control : Someissues". Prof. K S Raghavan, Professor& Head, Department of Library andInformation Science, University ofMadras, Chennai presented his paperentitled "Universal Bibliographic Control: Implications for India". The last paperof this session was presented by Mr KK Kochukoshy, Librarian, CentralReference Library, Kolkata entitled"Bibliographic resources in IndianLanguages"

Mr Graham Shaw, Head, AsiaPacific and Africa Collections, The

British Library, London presented theviews contained in his paper "ModernisingNational Libraries : some aspects ofrecent British Library experiments". DrPrachark Wattananusit, Deputy Director,National Library of Thailand presentedhis paper "Royal Legacy : Collections ofthe National Library of Thailand". It wasfollowed by a paper entitled "Prototypingof Language Library Services inSingapore" by Ms PushpalathaNaidu,Executive, National Library Board,Singapore. The third session on"Information technology" was chaired byDr H K Kaul. Dr Jagdish Arora, Librarian,Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhipresented his paper "Applications of newinformation technology". It was followedby a paper presentation by Dr Shalini Urs,Professor, Department of Library andInformation Science, Mysore University,Mysore entitled "Fossilising for the future: scoping the role of National Libraries inthe digital domain". Mr Zhang Xiaoxing,Deputy Director, National Library of Chinapresented his article entitled "Thecontribution of Information Technology tothe services of the National Library ofChina". Ms Ngian Lek Choh, AssistantChief Executive, Operations, NationalLibrary Board, Singapore presented herarticle entitled "SILAS : SingaporeIntegrated Library Automation Services".Dr E Rama Reddy, University Librarian,University of Hyderabad presented hispaper on "Use of advanced informationtechnology : National Library of India".Ch. Ahrarul Hasan Jawaid, AssistantLibrarian, Maulana Azad Library, AligarhMuslim University presented his paperentitled "Digital resources and archivingin the National Library". The last paper ofthis session entitled "National Library ofIndia iin the digital context : strategicdirections" was presented by Dr JagtarSingh, Head, Department of Library andInformation Science, Panjabi University,Patiala.

The fourth session on "Standards andInternational Cooperation" was chaired byMr Graham Shaw, British Library, London.The first paper "Bibliographic control inthe 21st century : need for commoninternational standards" was presented

by Ms Sunita Murthy, Head ofCataloguing, US Library of CongressOffice, New Delhi. Dr A R D Prasad,Associate Professor, DRTC, Bangalorepresented his paper on "Standards andguidelines for digitisation and digitalrepositories in National Libraries".

The fifth session on "Preservationand Conservation" was chaired by Mr OP Kejriwal, Chairman, Board ofManagement, National Librayr, Kolkata.The first paper of this session on"Preservation and conservation ofLibrary resources with special referenceto National Library of Malaysia" waspresented by Mohd. Din Bin Ahmed,Deputy Director, Conservation Division,National Library of Malaysia. Mr R KPerti, former Director General, NationalArchives of India presented his paperentitled "National Library : preservingthe library materials" It was followed bya paper presentation by Mr V K JJeevan, Assistant Librarian, IndianInstitute of Technology, Kharagpur on"Preserving the cultural heritage of Indiathrough digital mode by decentralisedNational Library system". Prof. M BKonnur, former University Librarian andHead, Department of Library andInformation Science, University ofPune, presented the paper on behalf ofMrs Aparna Rajendra on "MusicLibraries in the perspectives of LegalDeposit". Dr R Bhattacharya, OSD,National Library spoke about the retro-conversion work at the National Library.

The last technical session on"Marketing of services and users' needs"was chaired by Mr R P Kaushik,member of the Board of Management,National Library, Kolkata. Dr RoshanLai Raina, Professor, Indian Institute ofManagement, Lucknow presented hispaper on "Developing marketingorientation in the context of NationalLibrary, India". It was followed by apaper presentation entitled "Marketingof National Library services" by Mr NSathyanarayana, Managing Director,Informatics India Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore.Ms Olga Kulish of National Library ofRussia presented her paper on"Information services in the National


ICONLIS 2004

Library of Russia", Mr Ahmed Papifrom Iran presented his paper on"Services of Libraries of Legislation ofHouses". Ms Tasybayeva SvetlanaAhmediyevna, Deputy Director General,National Library of Republic ofKazakshstan presented her paperentitled "The legislative provisions ofKazakhstani librarianship". Prof. PrabirRoy-choudhary raised some pertinentissues concerning the National Libraryof India. Ms Devinder Kaur, UniversityLibrarian, Panjabi University, Patialapresented her paper on "Multiculturaldiversities and the National Libraryservices". It was followed by a paperpresentation of Ms Sangeeta Kaul,Network Manager, DELNET on"International interlending anddocument supply : Roadmap forNational Libraries". The last paperentitled "Emerging needs for the

improvement of service quality of theNational Library of India in the 21st

century" was presented by MrAtin Nandi, Indian Institute ofTechnology, Kharagpur.

The valedictory function ofICONLIS 2004 was presided over byProf. P N Kaula, former ProfessorEmeritus, Banaras Hindu Universityand the valedictory address was givenby Prof. Sib Narayan Ray, formerChairman, Raja Rammohun Roy LibraryFoundation, Kolkata. Prof. Amitabha

Chatterjee was the Rapporteur-Generalof ICONLIS 2004.

We had developed two tracks, onefor all presentations in the internationalconference and the otherfor InternationalConsultative Committees. Theproceedings of the internationalconference have been published by theNational Library, India under the titleNational Library Services: ICONLIS 2004.The following eleven issues werediscussed at these internationalconsultative committees:

I The Legal DepositII National Bibliographic ControlIII Standards for National LibrariesIV Collection DevelopmentV Inter-lending and Document SupplyVI Content Development In Digital FormVII National and International

CooperationVIM Marketing of National Library

ServicesIX National Library Services for UsersX Preservation and ConservationXI Cultural Heritage

In the first session, Dr. H. K. Kaul,Coordinator, ICONLIS introduced thepurpose and the methodology forholding International ConsultativeCommittee meetings. This was followedby the introduction to the first session onthe legal deposit by Mr. K. Jayakumar,

Joint Secretary, Department of Culturewho presided over the programme. Mr.Dashrath Thapa, Chief Library NationalLibrary, Nepal was the Convener.

Mr. Jayakumar referred to thesituation in India and gave an overviewof it. He said that all publications printedin India did not reach the NationalLibrary. He felt that the publishers werenot getting any benefits and that theyhad to deposit four books under theDelivery of Books Act. He added thatthe postal charges were also higher. Heobserved that a well designed planneeded to be drafted so that the Act wasamended.

Mr. Dashrath Thapa argued thatthe services of a National Library couldnot be rendered well until at least onecopy of all books published in a countryreached the National Library. He saidthat the National Bibliography shouldbe published regularly and hoped thatthe Delivery of Books Act would bepassed in Nepal in the near future. Thediscussants included Dr. RavinderKumar Chadha, Dr. O. P. Kejariwal, Dr.R. P. Kaushik, Mr. James Nye, Mr. B. P.Barua and Mr. Graham Shaw. Theymade the following main suggestions:

1. A National Bibliographic Databaseshould be prepared.

2. A National Heritage Depositoryshould be started.

3. E-publications should also beacquired by the National Library.

4. Thepenaltyfornon-supplyof booksunder the Delivery of Books Actshould be more.

5. The Delivery of Books Act beinterlinked with the Copyright Act.

6. There should be communicationamong the four depository libraries.

7. In every state the registration ofbooks be made compulsory withthe Registrar's Office.

8. Every state should publish anannual list of books published in thestate for cross-checking purposes.

9. The law should be attractive topublishers.

Mr. Graham Shaw, British Library, London


ICONLIS 2004

10. Arrangements should be madefor regular cataloguing andpreservation of books receivedunder the Act.

11. The Legal Depository Library/National Library should assignISBN numbers.

The second InternationalConsultative Committee was onNational Bibliographic Control. Thecommittee was chaired by Ngian LekChoh, Assistant Chief Executive.Operations, National Library Board,Singapore. Prof. K. S. Raghavan, Head,Department of Library and InformationScience, University of Madras was theConvener.

At the meeting the followingconcerns were highlighted by Chairman,Convener, Dr. A. R. D. Prasad and theother speakers:1. Non-book material should come

underthe purview of the depositorylaws.

2. Bibliographic control should takeinto account publications in regionallanguages and in English.

3. Software be given for promotingbibliographic control.

4. Issues such as vocabulary control,cross-language searching, Unicodeapplications with search facilitiesbe taken into account.

5. Authority files should be main-tained by the National Library.

6. GIST technology was not favouredbecause of its limitations.

7. 150,000 titles in the National Libraryof Bhutan were available in MARC.

8. The management of CopyrightAct, Press and Registration ofBooks Act and Delivery of BooksAct should be put under one agency.

9. As a matter of policy the publiclibraries in Tamil Nadu have forcedthe publishers in Tamil Nadu todeposit a copy with the StateCentral Library.

The third International ConsultativeCommittee on Standards for NationalLibraries was chaired by Mr. Zhang

Xiaoxing, Deputy Director, National Libraryof China. Dr. A. R. D. Prasad, AssociateProfessor, DRTC, Bangalore was theconvener.

The chairman, convener and thespeakers highlighted the following issues:

1. MARC 21, Dublin Core be adopted.2. Standards for multimedia based

documents be evolved.3. International standards for

preservation of documents beadopted.

4. The service standards should bedeveloped.

5. The standards being used in Chinawere discussed.

6. Community information serviceshould be provided.

7. Training of personnel in providinginformation access to users should beprovided.The fourth International Consultative

Committee on Collection Developmentwas chaired by Mr. Murakami Masashi,Department Director, Collections,National Diet Library, Tokyo. Ms.AntoniaArahova, responsibleforthe Foreign Pressand the Enrichment of Collections,Department of Periodicals, National Libraryof Greece was the convener.

The committee discussed thefollowing issues:1. The National Libraries should shift

their focus from acquisition to access.2. Publishers and information providers

should be involved as partners inbuilding resource sharing networks.

3. For buying electronic publicationsthe National Libraries should keepthe following criteria in mind:a. Targeted users;b. Ease of use;c. Coverage;d. Cost;e. Accuracy;f. Licensing;g. Compatibility; ande. Updates.

4. Bibliographic control of electronic

publications be developed.5. Collection development has been

affected by exponential growth ofpublications, increasing costs ofpublications and drastic cuts inlibrary budgets.

6. A collection development policy isvery importantfora National Library.

7. It is important to identify yourselection criteria for books, media,periodicals, electronic resourcesand Internet resources. It is alsoimportant to decide how to selectfor different age-groups.

8. The collections developed also needcontinuous evaluation in order to besure that the library is fulfilling itsmission to provide material in atimely manner.

The fifth International ConsultativeCommittee on Inter-lending andDocument Supply was chaired by Dr.Kariyawasam Tissa, Chairman,Natiional Library Documentation andService Board, Sri Lanka. Dr. P.Ramachandran, Principal Library andInformation Officer, National Library,India was the convener.

Dr. Ramachandran gave anoverview of the work being done atthe National Library, India. Dr.Ramachandran was not in favour ofissuing books to readers by the NationalLibrary in Kolkata. This view was alsosupported by other delegates. It wasfollowed by the chairman's views. Hesaid that the National Library of Sri Lankacharged Rs. 20 per day for having 10 to20 pages of xeroxed copies. TheNational Library of Sri Lanka did notissue books to the users. He added thatmost of the old and rare books in SriLanka were kept in the NationalArchives. He noted that the onlinecatalogue of books was being preparedwithin the next two years.

The sixth International ConsultativeCommittee on Content Developmentin Digital Form was chaired by Mr.James Nye, Bibliographer for SouthernAsia and Director, South Asia Languageand Area Centre, University of Chicago.


ICONLIS 2004

Dr. E. Rama Reddy, University Librarian,University of Hyderabad was theconvener.

Mr. Nye introduced the subject andemphasised the availability of an onlinecatalogue at the national andinternational levels. He stressed theselection procedures of the materialsfor digitisation. He felt that theNational Library of India could makevery valuable contributions to thedigitisation of materials on the culturalheritage.

Dr. E. Rama Reddy highlighted theneed for clear-cut parameters fordigitisation. He maintained that thedigitisation of language materials couldbe done in the states and necessarily inthe National Library. He added thatduplication should be avoided, andunique works and classics be digitised.

The other speakers includedDr. H. K. Kaul, Dr. Shalini Urs, Dr.Jagtar Singh, Dr. R. Bhattacharjee andMs Elizabeth Dracoulis. The issuesdiscussed included the following:1. Duplication be avoided at national

and international levels.2. Directory of digitised works be

published.3. Metadata of digitised works be

made available on the Web.4. National policy for digitisation of

printed books should be framed.5. Quality control must be ensured in

the digitised works.6. Books digitised at the National

Library of India should be availableonline.

7. The National Library of India mayundertake state-level digitisationprojects. Materials be selected onthe basis of physical condition,rare value of the document, etc.The seventh International

Consultative Committee Meeting onPreservation and Conservation ofDocuments in National Libraries waschaired by Dr. R. Bhattacharjee, OSD/Director, National Library, India. Mr.Mohd. Din Bin Ahmad, Deputy Director,National Library of Malaysia, KualaLumpur was the convener.

Dr. R. Bhattacharjee emphasisedthe need for a national policy forpreservation and digitisation of books.He said that a National Digital Libraryshould be established in India. He alsostressed the need for evolving standardsfor preservation and conservation. Mr.Mohd. Din Bin Ahmed described thesituation in Malaysia. He observed thatthe preservation and digitisation ofdocuments were given priority in Malaysia.

The other speakers, who includedDr. JagtarSingh, Prof. P. B. Mangla, Dr.Graham Shaw, Dr. E. Rama Reddy andMr. Sarkar from the National Library ofIndia, discussed the following issues:

1. For preservation and conservation ofits resources the National Library maycollaborate with IFLA and UNESCO.

2. The work should be undertaken on aregional basis in India.

3. As the basic purpose of preservationwas to have access to the docu-mentsin future, digitisation of preserveddocuments should also be done.

The eighth International ConsultativeCommittee Meeting on Marketing ofNational Library Services was chaired byMs Natalia Berezina, Director, LibraryInformation Service, Russian StateLibrary, Moscow. Dr. Roshan Lai Raina,Professor (Communication Group) andProfessor-in-charge (Library), IndianInstitute of Management, Lucknow wasthe convener. Mr. B. B. Das was therapporteur.

Ms Berezina introduced the subjectand described the services available inthe Moscow State Library. Sheemphasised the need for marketingNational Library services. Dr. Roshan LaiRaina stressed the fine tuning of themissions of National Libraries so thatmarketing of content to users became apriority. He argued that there was needfor cooperation among the NationalLibraries of the world in this regard.

The other speakers, who includedMs Anatonia Arahova, Mr. P. Jayarajan,Mr. A. Chakraborty, Dr. H. K. Kaul, Dr.Jagdish Arora, Dr. Shalini Urs and Dr.Elizabeth Dracoulis discussed thefollowing issues:

1. The National Library documentsshould be put in order beforestarting the marketing ofinformation on them.

2. Users should be categorised beforeprioritising the services for them.

3. Value-added services be providedwith a fee and not free.

4. Well designed internal marketing inthe National Library of India shouldbe done before starting externalmarketing.

5. National Library policy should bedefined in order to develop effectivemarketing plans.

6. Information should be provided tousers irrespective of theirgeographical locations.The ninth International Con-sultative

Committee Meeting on National LibraryServices for Users was chaired by MsElizabeth Dracoulis, Director, Readers'Services, National Library of Australia,Canberra. Dr. Jagdish Arora, Librarian,Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhiwas the convener.

The committee discussed thefollowing issues:

1. The various aspects of in- formationexplosion were discussed.

2. It was considered that by usingIT it should be possible to makepredictions of the future needs ofusers.

3. The environment of the NationalLibrary should be user-friendly.

4. About 1000 users visit theNational Library of India daily.

5. Translation services should beprovided to the users who comefrom different backgrounds.

6. The National Library of India shouldupgrade its Web site and providebetter reference services manuallyand electronically.

7. It may be necessary to establishgateway lines to some of theNational Libraries.

8. The National Library of India shouldprovide online bibliographicaccess, access to electronic

delnet Newsletter 10 Vol. 11, Nos. 1&2, December 2004

ICONLIS 2004

resources and access to languagepublications.

9. All the documents in the NationalLibrary should be catalogued inmachine readable form usinginternational standards such asMARC 21.

10. The services provided by theNational Library should bepublicised.

11. The National Library of India shouldmaintain a profile of users andmonitor the usage patterns.The tenth International Con-

sultative Committee Meeting onNational and International Co-operationswas chaired by Mr. Graham Shaw,Head, Asia Pacific and AfricaCollections, The British Library, London.Dr. H. K. Kaul, Director, DELNET, NewDelhi was the convener.

The chairman and convenerstressed the need for national andinternational cooperation in providingbetter services by National Libraries totheir users. The crucial issues thatwere discussed included exchange ofinformation, encompassing a widevariety of resources, legal problemsinvolved in trans-border flows ininformation, intellectual property rights,sharing of latest IT developments,growth of information markets and theneed for coordination and cooperationin order to achieve better results by theNational Libraries. Some of the followingissues were discussed:1. National Library of India should

have close cooperation with I FLA.2. The National Library should play a

crucial role in the development oflibraries in India.

3. The National Library should makebetter use of cultural exchangeprogrammes for building bridgesof cooperation with the otherNational Libraries.

4. The National Library shouldestablish linkages with the otherlibraries.

5. The National Library shouldestablish different sections suchas Academic Library Section,Public Library Section and

Research Library Section in order topromote cooperation at national andinternational levels.The eleventh International

Consultative Committee Meeting onCultural Heritage was chaired byvenerable Rimpoche Mynak Tulku,Director, National Library, Bhutan.Ms Joan De Beer, Acting NationalLibrarian, National Library of South,Africa, Pretoria was the convener.

The chairman gave an overview ofthe National Library of Bhutan andmaintained that in Bhutan there are 2006temples and monasteries. He added thata plan was being evolved to make adatabase of monastery collections. Headded that the National Library of Bhutancontributed a great deal in promotingBhutanese culture and traditions He alsosaid that digitisation of art objects wasalso being considered necessary. Hereferred to the role of the National Archivesin Bhutan and affirmed that the newbuilding of the National Library was goingto be ready within a few months time. Headded that the Legal Deposit Act waspassed three years ago and the legislationof antiquities was under consideration.

Ms. Joan De Beer gave an overviewof the work being done in the NationalLibrary in South Africa. She said paintingand art objects were being taken careof. She compared India and South Africaand noted that there were culturaldiversities in both the countries.

The participants observed that:1. The diverse culture of India should

be promoted by the National Library.2. The cultural information for the

diaspora was essential and theNational Library should undertake thepreparation of such works.

3. The National Library should take apro-active role in preserving thecultural heritage by undertakingvarious projects at national andstate levels.The holding of the First International

Conference on National Library Serviceswas indeed a great experience. We hopethat it will be organised by the otherNational Libraries in other parts of theworld. •

DELNET MEMBERS(as on December 31,

Members :

2004)

844

Geographical Distribution

In INDIA

Andhra PradeshAndaman & NicobarArunachal PradeshAssamBiharChandigarhChhattisgarhDelhiGoaGujaratHaryanaHimachal PradeshJammu & KashmirJharkhandKarnatakaKeralaMadhya PradeshMaharashtraManipur ;MeghalayaOrissaPondicherryPunjabRajasthanSikkimTamil NaduTripuraUttar PradeshUttaranchalWest Bengal

Total

Outside INDIA

NepalOmanPhilippinesSri LankaUnited Arab EmiratesUSA

Total

751i5446

1526

2420

667

74263284

11

196

2426

1120

1561133

832

221313

12


lecture

Total Quality Person

DELNET organised a lecture atthe India International Centre onJuly 3, 2004 on TQP - Total QualityPerson delivered by Prof. (Dr.) C. V.Ramanan, Director, Sri SringeriSharda Institute of Management,New Delhi. The lecture was presidedover by Mr. P. C. Sen, Director, IIC.Mr. Sen in his introductory remarksmentioned that we were familiarwith the term TQM - Total QualityManagement in the 1980s whichwas followed by a large number ofcorporate bodies in India and abroadwith a passion for excellence andfor bringing passion intomanagement.

Dr. Ramanan referred to the sixsmall books written five years agoon personal and professionalexcellence. Since then, he has beentrying to promote the concept ofTQP or Total Quality Person.

Dr. Ramanan referred to con-temporary challenges which werebeing faced due to globalisation. Thedelivery of quality products andservices, having quality interactionswas not only the best way but it wasthe only way to succeed. He addedthat the Total Quality Management,TQM was a great philosophy. Thefoundation of TQM was TQP. He saidthat TQP was a person with character,with the right values, with a positiveattitude and with a desire to serve.He asked, was it possible for us to domore of the right things faster andeasier? Was it possible for us to beefficient and effective? How to do theright things and do them in the rightway? Could we get a better handle, abetter grip on our lives to make choicesthat made our lives a more rewardingexperience?

Dr. Ramanan alluded to fourhuman needs: to live, to love, to learn

and to leave a legacy. Dr.Ramanan added that when wetalk of integrated personality andenrichment, the first was thephysical aspect of our personality.A healthy body was acomfortable guest chamber forthe soul, a sick body was aprison. Now one of the few thingsin life for which we didn't geta second chance obviously wasto make a favourable firstimpression. It was because ofthe physical aspect of ourpersonality that we make a goodfirst impression. The secondaspect was mental : continuouslearning, having an open mind.The source was not important.We could learn as much from asmall child as we can from a

senior person. We learn not onlyfrom our mistakes but from otherpeople's mistakes. Despite all thisthere were occasions when welost - we could not win all the time -but even if we lose, we mustmake sure that we do not lose thelessons.

Dr. Ramanan shared with theaudience some anecdotes which inour contexts were always related toan idea or emotion. Dr. Ramananraised a few pertinent questionsregarding the TQP and gaveprescriptions such as (i) Smile moreoften; (ii) The expressions, the bodylanguage and the entire posturewere far more important and hadmore far-reaching implications thanthe words; (iii) Maintainance of theright attitude; (iv) Importance ofpersonal image matters (v) A TotalQuality Person was also an effectiveleader; (vi) Effectivecommunication, was essential; (vii)Time management was necessary.We should not allow matters tobecome urgent by postponing them.

Dr. Ramanan maintained thatproactive people were value-drivenby a set of values which made senseto them. Punctuality was a valuebecause we believed that our timecould not be more important thanthe time of the person who waswaiting for us. Humility was also avalue. Listening is also a value.Finally, according to Dr. Ramanan,what was success? Total QualityLife. TQL laid equal emphasis onwork, family, friends, leisure,personal growth and spiritualattainment.

Dr. Ramanan concluded sayingunless there was meaning andpurpose, life would be empty andunhappy regardless of how muchprestige or education we have. •

Prof. (Dr.) C.V. Ramanan


national technology day

New Trends in IT: Content Creation

DELNET organised a lecture on"New Trends in IT: Content Creation" byDr. V.N. Shukla, Director, SpecialApplications, Centre for Developmentof Advanced Computing (CDAC), Noidato mark National Technology Day onMay 11, 2004. The programme waspresided over by Dr. Jagdish Arora,Librarian, IIT Delhi and NationalCoordinator, INDEST Consortium.

Dr. Arora introduced the subject tothe audience. Dr. Shukla said that theDigital Library according to SunMicrosystems is an electronicextension of the functions userstypically perform and the resourcesthey access in a traditional library. Headded that these information resourcescan be translated into digital form,stored in multimedia repositories, andmade available through the World WideWeb. He noted that the digital librariescould also be defined as theorganisations that provide theresources, including the specialisedstaff, to select, structure, offerintellectual access to, interpret,distribute, preserve the integrity of,and ensure the persistence over time,of collections of digital works so thatthey are readily available for use by a

Dr. V.N. Shukla & Dr. Jagdish Arora

defined community or set ofcommunities.

While emphasising the importance ofthe Digital Libraries, Dr. Shukla maintainedthat they provide efficient and qualitativeservices by collecting, organising, storing,disseminating, retrieving and preservinginformation. He stated that besidesmaking information retrieval and deliverymore comfortable, preservation wasnecessary for online access to historicaland cultural documents whose existencewas endangered due to physical decay.According to him, Digital Librariesnecessarily included a strong focus onthe management of digital content, justas traditional libraries focused for longon the management of content in thephysical forms. While comparing theDigital Collections vs the Digital Libraries,Dr. Shukla said that while DigitalCollections were "raw content", the"Digital Libraries" were the systems thatmade digital collections come alive; madethem usefully accessible, useful foraccomplishing work and connect themwith communities.

He affirmed thatthe collections gainedvalue only when they were surrounded bya matrix of content and interpretation thatmakes them useful. Therefore it should

be ascertained, he added, thatwedevelop digital libraries, not justdigital collections. He alsocautioned that care should betakento surround collections withappropriate metadata supplyingcontext and interpretation, todevelop synergy. Dr. Shuklaobserved that the digital librariesof the future will have acomprehensive collection ofresources important forscholarship, teachingand learning;readily accessible to all types ofusers; and managed andmaintained by professionals. Whiletalking about the Digital ContentManagement, he said that most of

the digital content that was beingmanaged include (a) Human languagein various forms, character-codedelectronic text, scanned images,printed or handwritten text or humanspeech (b) Language technologyhelps in managing digital content(c) Management through Learningfrompast experiences also adds to managecontent.

According to him the major areasfor great exploitations are: Informationretrieval, multimedia, database, datamining, data warehouse, onlineinformation repositories, imageprocessing, hypertext and WorldWide Web and Wide Area InformationServices (WAIS). He cited a fewadvantages of Digital Libraries like thebenefits of Access Anywhere, reducingdelays, distributed storage, centralaccess, better cataloguing, crossreferences to other documents, full textsearch, protected information sourceand wide exploration and exploitation ofinformation.

He added that the elements of theDigital Library environment includes(1) Initial conversion of content fromphysical to digital form. (2) The extractionor creation of metadata or indexinginformation. (3) Storage of digitalconntentandmetadatain an appropriatemultimedia repository. (4) Clientservices for the browser, includingrepository querying and workflow. (5)Content delivery via file transfer ofstreaming media. (6) Patron accessthrough a browser or dedicated clientand (7) A private or public network. Hespoke at length about the process ofthe digitisation of the content. He saidthat the digital collection developmentrequires extensive use of technologicalresources and a number of digitallibrary developers are puttingsubstantial collections online.Some of these collections includemillions of digital objects; collectionsare being planned that will requirestorage measured in petabytes


national technology day

- the equivalent of more than 50,000desktop computers with 20 gigabytehard drives. He said that the storagecapacity must be scalable to adapt torapid growth in demand and must beadapted to the mix of media types thatmay be stored in a digital library such astext, which is relatively compact,graphics which can be data intensive,audio which is highly dynamic and videowhich is highly dynamic and dataintensive.

He maintained that the storagecapacity should be expandable ineconomical increments and should notrequire redesign or re-engineering ofthe system design as requirementsgrow. An open system architecture,according to Dr. Shukla, provides botha robust platform and the best selectionof the digital media managementsolutions and development tools. Healso mentioned the various tools forcontent creation such as-Prabandhika- Corpus Management Tool,Vishleshika-Statistical Text Analyser,Test Bed for OCR with Workflow,Textsummarisation tool, Cross-lingualinformation retrieval and search forIndian Language content, Multilingualcrawler for Indian languages,Multimodal interface for the physicallychallenged, automatic search indexingtools, multilingual and multimodalauthoring tools and multimodal contentmanagement tools. He also apprisedthe delegates about the cross-lingualinformation retrieval systems whichhad been developed for Indianlanguages.

According to Dr. Shukla, this wouldfacilitate search on the Internet formultilingual information. The query maybe put in any Indian language andresults can be seen in any of thelanguages based on a dictionarydeveloped from the available corpus -the search will be made in all languagesfor the Unicode content. He spokeabout the metadata which was a key tolocating, using, and preserving digital

content in metadata, or structured dataabout digital objects and collections. Heobserved that many digitisation effortshad not been successful due to inadequatemetadata. Three different types ofmetadata are essential to ensure theusability and preservation of the collectionovertime, i.e. descriptive metadata whichconveys some sense of intellectualcontent and context, structural metadatawhich describes the attributes of an object,such as size, electronic format, etc andadministrative metadata which carriesinformation relating to rights management,creation date of digital resources andhardware configuration, etc. Dr. Shuklaalso dwelled on the various issues whichcomplicate the maintenance of the digitalobjects over a long period of time.

According to him, the issues ofconcern were (1) Deterioration of media:The stone tablets had a considerableadvantage over today's digital media forlong-term storage. The problem ofdeterioration limits the useful life of today'sdigital media to between 5 to 50 years,while the librarians debate as howto retainthe artifacts of ourcivilisationforthousandsof years tocome. (2) Evolution in type andformat of media : there was relativelyrecent history of personal computer use.According to him there had been anevolution from 5-1/4" floppy disks to highdensity 3-1/2 diskettes to high density zipdisks, all require different physical diskdrives and reader software. He said thatoptical storage technology was next andthere would undoubtedly be a continualchange in storage technologies. (3)Changes in applications and operatingsystems : The hardware required byapplications and operating systemssoftware also changes over time. Anyinformation stored in a given software/hardware environment will eventually berendered obsolete through technologicalobsolescence. (4) Preservation ofprocessing results: Some digital resourcesexist only fleetinglyasa program runs andcan not be preserved as static objects.

Preservation of such resources requiresmaintenance of the program and thesurrounding operating environment inoperableform.

Dr. Shukla spoke about the futuredirectionsofthedigital library. He statedthat the shift from text and image-basedsystems to audio and video wouldcontinue. As network bandwidthbecomes more economical andstreaming technologies improve, anincreasing number of institutions wouldhave access to the practicality of fullmedia solutions, the best practices willemerge for digitisation, rightsmanagement, preservation, metadatacoding and other key digital libraryprocesses. The standard would alsomove from the discussion and trialstage to widespread adoption, accordingto him.

He further reiterated that the nextgeneration of digital library developmentand deployment will focus onstandardisation, usability, and pro-ductionisation - providing greaterusability for library patrons, increasedinteroperability among digital collectionsand more cost-effective choices forinstitutions just beginning digitisationprograms. He affirmed that the growingdependence on digital informationresources will create market pressureforthe creation of cooperative solutionsfor long-term preservation. He said thatthe digital libraries will be linked to thecampus E-leaming and administrativesystems to provide one stop virtualcampus.

Dr. Shukla concluded his talk bymentioning that it was clear with theemerging IT trends in content creationthat the digital library technology wasbecoming an essential enabler of libraryservices and all libraries of the futurewould be characterised by technology-based information services that extendand enhance the traditional mission oflibraries in our society. •


annual lecture

DELNET Annual Lecture

DELNET organised its SeventhAnnual Lecture on E-governance inthe information age entitled "Facingthe Citizen Turning G to G by 180"delivered by Dr. N. Vijayaditya,Director-General, National InformaticsCentre, New Delhi on December 17,2004. The programme was presidedover by Mr. Jagmohan, Former UnionMinister for Tourism & Culture,Government of India. Dr. Vijayadityabegan his lecture by citing theadvances in knowledge engineeringand WWW which led to a new era ofinformation from the early 1990sonwards. He dwelt on the informationperspective of governance and saidthat government is by nature aninformation-intensive organisation. Headded that information is power andinformation management is political.Representative democracy relies onsupposition and the best way to makea decision is wider participation for allits citizens having access to relevantinformation.

The expansion of Internet andelectronic commerce is redefiningrelationships among variousstakeholders in the process ofgovernance. Electronic governance

Dr. N. Vijayaditya, Director-General, NIC

is an emerging trend to re-invent theway the government works and a newmodel of governance would be basedupon the transactions in virtual space,digital economy and dealing withknowledge-oriented societies. Accordingto Mr. Mark Struckman, Centre forDigital Governments' E-GovernmentPrograms Director, "In five years' timeall governments will be Internet-enabled,orthey won't be governments at all". Dr.Vijayaditya noted that the priorities forgovernance-based technology includes: Ensuring the well- being and safety ofcommunities, creating economic vitality,preparing a productive workforce,building education and health care forthe public specially for children andadults, creation and maintenance oftransport and communicationinfrastructure and protection andpromotion of natural resources.

The main focus of E-Governance istoimprovethe service delivery mechanism,enhancing the efficiency of productionand emphasis on the wider access ofinformation. Dr. Vijayaditya also spoke atlength about the present model of E-governance. He argued that the basicorientation of this model is not to reducethe role of government in the citizen's lifebut to serve it more efficiently. Moreover,the citizen has to orient himself to fit in withthe way government works. Dr. Vijayadityastressed the need for reorientation and analternative model of E-Governance. Heobserved that emphasis is accorded forself-service. If the citizen is more self-reliant, he may access "Online"government depending on his need.However, he is in charge of affairs and incommand of a situation. The role ofgovernance is limited as facilitator. Theinternal fabric of the G to G system ishaving higher intelligence. It is thegovernment which tries to adapt itself tothe life of a citizen, particularly those whoare under-privileged, whereas in the

previous model it was the other wayround.

There has been a transformationfrom E-Government to DigitalGovernance and the core functionincludes Public Safety, Health,Education, Economic Activity andInfrastructure. Dr. Vijayaditya affirmedthat in a true E-governance framework,the concept of appropriate governmentwill be replaced by appropriategovernance with a specific focus onreaching the rural masses and thesame government will be working in asmart way in the E-government era.He referred to the Public GrievanceRedress and Management Systemwherein Web-enabled technology isemployed to design a system whichextends total workflow automation,Internet- enabled receipt of publicgrievances, acknowledgementforwarding, etc. It has consequentlyincreased the receipt of the grievancesbut the higher number of grievancesreceived does not necessarily ensurea higher number of redressed cases.

While talking about the othercitizen-centric applications such asdelivery of birth, death certificates,record of rights, income tax forms,etc., Dr. Vijyaditya noted that theprocess remains unchanged and thecurrent model may offer limited valueas it is driven by process and not byresults. He maintained thattechnologyshould be used to enable the deliveryof results and not merely as a sub-stitute to reduce inertial processes.Technological innovations should bemade for public services andtechnology should not be used tomummify (preserve) legacy systems.G to G may create channel partnersfor service delivery interfaces and thefocus should be more on results andnot on process. Governance shouldbe a collaborative approach and oughtto create leadership in technology,security and privacy.

Contd on last page

delnet Newsletter 15 Vol. 11, Nos. 1 &2, December 2004

R. No. 59477/94 • ISSN 0972-0790

training programmes

DELNET Training Programmes

DELNET organised a series of Training/Orientation programmes in differentparts of the country. The chief focus ofthese programmes was to makeworking professionals aware of theDELNET services. DELNET was glad tocollaborate in these programmes with anumber of its member institutions indifferent states. The programmes wereheld from April 19-21, 2004 at NIC, NewDelhi, June 14,2004 at K.L.N. College ofEngineering, Madurai, June 17, 2004 atM.S. Ramaiah Institute of Management,

Bangalore, June 19,2004 at Universityof Hyderabad, Hyderabad, August 28,2004 at National Institute of FinancialManagement, Faridabad, September4,2004 at Malaviya National Institute ofTechnology, Jaipur, September 18,2004at Panjab University, Chandigarh,September 27, 2004 at Medi-CapsInstitute of Technology andManagement, Indore. A large numberof professionals from the members/non-members (AICTE approved)institutions participated in theseprogrammes. •

Participants at MSRIM, Bangalore

_l.L

Participants at NIFM, Faridabad

DELNET Annual Lecture(Contd. from page 15)

While concluding his lecture, Dr.Vijayaditya averred that the keychallenges with electronic governanceare not technology or Internet issuesbut organisational issues like redefiningrules and procedures, informationtransparency, legal issues, infra-structure, skill and awareness, accessto right information, interdepartmentalcollaboration and tendency to resistthe change in work culture. The otherset of challenges lie in extending thereach of E-Governance services to 70per cent of the Indian population thatlives in villages. These includeassessment of local needs andcustomising E-governance solutionsto meet those needs, connectivity,content (local content based on locallanguage), building human capacities,E-commerce and sustainability. Heobserved that the areas ofopportunities include creation of ITinfrastructure, standards for E-Governance procedure, reengineeringthe existing system, regionallanguages, culture and IT. Managingthe shifts in social paradigms by long-term approaches and strategies at thenational level, introduction ofindigenous and cost-effectivetechnologies more suitable for ruralareas, localisation of content in termsof language and context are otherspheres. Introduction of communitysoftware solutions such as eNRICH,developed by NIC, implementing E-Commerce solutions for marketingrural products, e.g. Rural Bazar,developed by NIC, exploringpartnerships for effectively deliveringE-Governance services at grass-rootlevel will eventually lead towardsresponsive governance withexcellence and accountability. Dr.Vijayaditya's lecture/presentation wasfollowed by an interactive question-answer session and the programmeended with a vote of thanks by Dr. H.K. Kaul, Director, DELNET. •

Edited and published by Dr. H.K. Kaul, for DELNET - Developing Library Network, 40, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi-110 003.Printed by Dr. H.K. Kaul at Kaveri Printers, Darya Ganj, Delhi-110 002. Assistant Editor: Sangeeta Kaul.