Digital Libraries: Digital Libraries: the process, initiatives and developmental issues in the process, initiatives and developmental issues in

IndiaIndiaByBy

Sudesh Kumar SoodSudesh Kumar SoodChief Librarian,Chief Librarian,

H.P. Central State Library, Solan (H.P)H.P. Central State Library, Solan (H.P)sood_sk14@yahoo.co.insood_sk14@yahoo.co.in

FeaturesFeatures

• A digital library may allow either online or offline access to the elements it organizes and houses.

• May include multimedia as well as multilingual data.

Objectives and WorkflowObjectives and Workflow• Enhance the digital collection in a substantial

way. • Embrace popular digital standards , formats and

software platforms.• Emphasis on maximize the efficiency and

effectiveness of the information access• Standard workflow patterns are to be identified

for the system for:‘content selection’, ‘content acquisition’, ‘content publishing’, ‘content indexing and storage’, and ‘content accessing and delivery’.

• The system should also concern about such related issues, – preservation, usage monitoring, access management,

interoperability, administration and management etc.

Meta-data Standards and Meta-data Standards and ProtocolsProtocols

• Metadata, or “data about data,” is a critical

element for searching information through a database

• A major governing body of the Web has developed de facto standards including RDF

• At present, digital library initiatives in India make use of – Dublin Core for web-based publications, – Encoded Archival Description (EAD) for archiving and Visual

Resources Association (VRA) for visual data. – Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

(OAI_PMH) to automatically extract metadata information from digital libraries and enhance interoperability between systems.

Selection of the SoftwareSelection of the Software

• It should be robust in technical architecture as well as the content architecture.

• The system should address all major digital library related issues such as ‘design criteria’, ‘collection building’, ‘content organization’, ‘access’, ‘evaluation’, ‘policy and legal issues’ including ‘intellectual property rights’.

• The system should also provide a powerful search engine and the interface should be easy to navigate and there should be provision for customization.

• There are many digital library soft wares available, proprietary as well as open source, and most of them conform to international standards.

• VTLS and ACADO are the commercial ones available and popular in the Indian market.

• Some of the popular Open Source Software for digital libraries, which are in use internationally, are ‘DSpace’, ‘Dienst’, ‘Eprints’, ‘Fedora’, ‘Greenstone’ etc.

Some Initiatives of IndiaSome Initiatives of India

• Institutional Repositories

• Open Courseware Initiatives

• Open Access Journals

• Metadata Harvesting Services

• and Others

Digital Repositories in IndiaDigital Repositories in India

• Institutional repository (IR) systems by libraries, using • Greenstone • Dspace • EPrints

• Some open access repositories are specially created to disseminate intellectual outputs of the country in the form of electronic theses and dissertations

• Vidyanidhi • ETD@IISc.

• Other national level open access repositories provide all kinds of scholarly materials on particular discipline.

• The OpenMED@NIC• Librarians' Digital Library

Some of such repositories are: Some of such repositories are:

• Digital Repository of IIT Bomaby• DRS@ino (National Institute of Oceanography) • DSpace@NITR (National Institute of Technology,

Rourkela)• DSpace@MDI (Indian Institute of Management

Kozhikode)• DSpace at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune• DSpace@INFLIBNET • Digital Collections@INFLIBNET Centre• ePrints@SVNIT (Sardar Vallabhbai National Institute of

Technology)• eGyanKosh (IGNOU) • ePrints@IIT Delhi

• ePrints@IISc• ePrints@Catalysis (National Centre for Catalysis

Research)• ePrings@SBTMKU (School of Biotechnology, Madurai

Kamraj University)• Indian Institute of Astrophysics Repository• National Aerospace Laboratories• Kautilya Digital Repository of IGIDR (Indira Gandhi

Institute of Development Research, Mumbai) • NISCAIR Online Periodicals Repository• OpenMED@NIC (Medical)• NISCAIR Online Periodicals Repository• RRI Digital Repository (Raman Research Institute Digital

Repository)

Open Courseware InitiativesOpen Courseware Initiatives • CEC Learning Object Repository

• www.cec-lor.edu.in• eGyankosh A National Digital Repository

• www.egyankosh.ac.in • Indo-German eGurukul on Digital Libraries

• http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/mmb/ • National Programme on Technology Enhanced

Learning (NPTEL) • www.nptel.iitm.ac.in

• NCERT Online Textbooks • www.ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Index.htm

• UNESCO-SALIS e-Learning Portal • http://salisonline.org

Open Access JournalsOpen Access Journals• e-Journals @ INSA

• www.insa.ac.in • Indian Academy of Sciences published Open

Access Journals • www.ias.ac.in/pubs/journals/

• IndianJournals.Com hosted Open Access Journals

• www.indianjournals.com • Kamla-Raj Enterprises published Open Access

Journals • www.krepublishers.com/KRENew- J/index.html

• MEDIND@NIC: Biomedical Journals from India • http://medind.nic.in

Metadata Harvesting ServicesMetadata Harvesting Services• Cross Archive Search Service for Indian

Repositories (CASSIR)• http://casin.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/oai/

• Open Index Initiative • http://oii.igidr.ac.in

• Open J-Gate • www.openj-gate.com

• Scientific Journal Publishing in India: Indexing and Online Management (SJPI)

• http://sjpi.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/ • Search Digital Libraries (SDL)

• http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/sdl/

Other Digital LibrariesOther Digital Libraries• Archives of Indian Labour: Integrated Labour History Research

Programme • www.indialabourarchives.org

• Child Trafficking Digital Library • www.ChildTrafficking.com

• CSIR Explorations • http://csirexplorations.com/

• Cultural Heritage Digital Library in Hindi • http://mobilelibrary.cdacnoida.in

• Digital e-Library (Dware Dware Gyan Sampadaa/Providing Books at Your Doorsteps)

• www.new.dli.ernet.in • Digital Library of India

• http://dli.iiit.ac.in • India Education Digital Library

• www.edudl.gov.in

• Kalasampada: Digital Library Resources of Indian Cultural Heritage (DL-RICH)

• www.ignca.nic.in/dlrich.html • Muktabodha: Digital Library and Archiving

Project • www.muktabodhalib.org/digital_library.htm• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library • www.tkdl.res.in• Vidyanidhi www.vidyanidhi.org.in• Vigyan Prasar Digital Library • www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/digilib/

Digital library development Digital library development issues in Indiaissues in India

• Lack of proper Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure

• Lack of Proper Planning and Integration of Information Resources

• Rigidity in the publishers’ policies and data formats

• Lack of ICT Strategies and Policies• Lack of Technical Skills• Management Support• Copyright / IPR Issues

ConclusionConclusion

• The effect of focused capacity building programmers in the areas of digital preservation, digital libraries and open access to literature is encouraging in a country like India, where significant proliferation of open access and digital library initiatives have been achieved in the last decade, which has seen fantastic accomplishments and the future presents exciting possibilities and challenges. The key to commitment and development in this field lies in the sensitization of stakeholders as which has been done in India, in order to achieve that paradigm shift in universal access to information, knowledge and heritage

BibliographyBibliography • Ambati, Vamshi... [et al] (2006). The Digital Library of India

Project: Process, Policies and Architecture.• Bhatnagar, S. & Schware, R. 2000. Technology in Development:

Cases from India. Sage Publications.• Bruce, B. C. (1997). Searching for digital libraries in education:

Why computers cannot tell the story. Library Trends,• 45(4), 746-770.• Duncker, E., Yin Leng Theng, and Norlisa Mohd-Nasir. (2000).

Cultural usability in digital libraries. Bulletin of the• Jebaraj, F. 2003. “The Electronic Library: An Indian Scenario”.

Library Philosophy and Practice. V5.N2. Spring 2003. www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/jebaraj.pdf

• Ramdasi, N. Visualizing Indian Heritage Digital Library Model. Center for Development of Advanced Computing. www.cdacindia.com/html/pdf/ramdasi.pdf

• Sood, Aditya Dev and Chandrasekharan, Uma (2004). Digital Libraries in India: A

• Baseline Survey. New Delhi: Center for Knowledge Societies.