Social Aspects &

Creation of Digital Libraries

byArun V R

KSCSTE Library, Sasthra BhavanTrivandrum

Digital Libraries

• A library in which a significant proportion of the resources are available in machine-readable format accessible by means of computers

• The digital content may be locally held or accessed remotely via computer networks

• Some of the largest and most successful digital libraries are Project Gutenberg, Ibiblio, and the Internet Archive.

Why Digital Libraries• Importance of equal access to diverse information for all

citizens

• Provide new opportunities for innovative educational practices

• More and more visitors … online and in the reading rooms

• No more physical SPACE CONSTRAINTS

Why Digital Libraries…

• long-term preservation

• cost of maintaining

• users will be able to CHOOSE how to read the information

• Offering users FULL TEXT search

Social Aspects of Digital Libraries

• Should support the professional, educational and recreational activities of diverse communities

• gap between those with and without access to digital information (Digital Divide)

• Broad Access to Content

• Infrastructure component

Social Aspects of Digital Libraries…

• Free Flow of Ideas

• Individual Empowerment and an Informed Citizenry

• Formal Education

• Preserve intellectual and cultural assets for future generations

Open Source• Source code available to users, who can

change the software to modify it more closely to their own requirements

• DSpace, Greenstone, E-Prints are the leading Open Source Software for developing Digital Library.

DSpace• Open source repository software package typically

used for creating open access repositories for scholarly and/or published digital content.

• Software of choice for academic, non-profit, and commercial organizations building open digital repositories

• Maintained by DuraSpace

Top Reasons To Use DSpace

• Large Community

• Free

• Customizable

• All institutions types

• Out-of-the-box

• Any digital content

Visually how DSpace works

Build Your Own Digital Library using Google Drive

Digital Library in KSCSTE using Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7oiDUJ7qUOndmxsVkFHZVJaRnM&usp=sharing

Concluding…

For those many endangered items especially where the climate and other conditions are not friendly to paper and other library items, digitisation provides a viable alternative to preserving them for future generations.

“Digital Library is where the past meets the present and creates the future”

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Thank You…