Digital Library Of India Research Articles

Digital libraries for minor languages in India: frameworks for addressing absences in policy and governance

PurposeGiven that Indian languages in general are under-represented on the internet and that languages of minority linguistic groups find very little space on digital platforms, it is imperative for institutions such as libraries to cater to smaller communities and their educational needs while also reaching out to them in their own languages. This study aims to deliberate on strategies for enlisting community support for gathering diverse learning resources in different languages and for enlisting participation in activities such as crowdsourcing in initiatives such as annotations and transliteration.Design/methodology/approachThis paper calls for interventions that imagine and create infrastructure for the flourishing of smaller libraries that can draw from and feed into large-scale national and international libraries. Offering a conceptual framework to rethink the country’s approach toward minor languages, it first offers an overview of policies and initiatives relevant to the concerns of minor languages in digital libraries in India. Based on the policy analysis, it then goes on to suggest starting points for policy designers and custodians of libraries to help them work toward better representation of languages in their resources.FindingsThe existing frameworks analyzed here for the greater or representation of minor Indian languages reveal a culture of silence toward the issue of language. With some advocacy, these frameworks can be mined to craft different ways that are critical not just for enriching libraries but also for preservation of cultural heritage of the communities concerned, thus adding a larger social dimension to the question of access.Originality/valueWhile a lot of socio-political discourse on minority languages in India exists, this study pushes for their bearing on digital libraries, educational frameworks and cultural heritage.

Digital Libraries in India: Special Reference to DELNET

डिजिटल पुस्तकालय’’ की संकल्पना एक इलेक्ट्रनिक माध्यम पर आधारित पुस्तकालय की अवधारणा से हैं, जिसमें प्रमुख रूप से पुस्तकालय में संग्रह ग्रंथों तथा कृतियों का स्वरूप इलेक्ट्रानिक यंत्रों तथा उपकरणों के द्वारा पढ़ा जा सकने वाला होता है। इसमें सूचना पथ गमन का आधार कम्पयूटर, मोबाईल, पामटाप या अन्य माध्यम हो सकते है। एक डिजिटल पुस्तकालय वर्तमान समय की अल्पावधि समय पर चाहि गई त्वरित ज्ञान मीमांसा को पूर्ण करने में सक्षमता प्रदान करती हैं। डिजिटल पुस्तकालय के वैश्वीकरण से किसी भी पुस्तकालय से घर बैंठै सेवाए प्राप्त की जा सकती है। पूर्व में जहाॅ उपयोगकर्ताओं को संस्था या सार्वजनिक पुस्तकालय की सेवा के लिए स्थापित पुस्तकालयों में आपनी ज्ञानार्जन की समाग्रीयों के लिए जाना पड़ता था वहीं वर्तमान के डिजिटल पुस्तकालय ज्ञानार्जन हेतु समाग्रीयों को अपने उपयोगकर्ता को उनके निवास स्थान या किसी भी जगह किसी भी समय आवश्यक सहायक माध्यमों के द्वारा पहुच संभव है। डेलनेट द्वारा वर्तमान में ऐसी ही सेवाएॅं अपने संस्थागत सदस्यों को प्रदान कर रही है। डेलनेट मुख्य रूप से भारत में एक विकाशील पुस्तकालय तंत्र की अवधारणा को पूर्ण करती है। जो की भारत में विभिन्न राज्यों में स्थापित अपने संस्थागत सदस्यों के लिए उनके डिजिटल संग्रह विकास हेतु तीव्र गति से कई गुणात्मक प्रभाव रखती है। जिससे डेलनेट के संस्थान सदस्यों के डिजिटल संग्रह में अविश्वसनीय बढ़ोत्तरी हुई है।

Content Analysis of Job Announcements for Digital Library Professionals from 2011 to 2019: An Indian Perspective

The skills required of academic library professionals are greatly influenced by the rapidly evolving digital technologies. The purpose of the present study is to observe the current state of job qualifications, skills and competencies required for working in academic digital libraries in India. The study was conducted to identify the 15 top ranked skills demanded for positions in academic digital libraries. A typology of 44 skills and competencies resulted from the content analysis of 180 job advertisements of academic digital libraries in India from January 2011 to December 2019. The resulting typology was divided into five different categories: technological skills, technical skills, information skills, collection development skills, and soft skills. The findings were found to emphasize the skills required for technical services. In addition to technical skills, employers were seeking candidates with basic computer knowledge, Microsoft office skills, website development and designing, database management, and networking skills. Moreover, the findings indicate that good communication skills were most in-demand in job advertisements. Ability to conduct information literacy programs and knowledge of digital resources and skills to build institutional repository are also emphasized in the study.

E-Reading and E-Learning @ Higher Elevations

The present paper aims at the advancement of e-reading and e-learning among the students, English language learners, teachers and all other academicians in India. There is a tremendous change in the development of language either it is one’s native language or English as second language, the lingua franca or the official language. E-reading is particularly a self-selected one and it has a wonderful impact on the English language readers. The modern day students are visually oriented students and they prefer e-reading and e-learning method to enrich their English knowledge. NDLI, the digital library of India and NPTEL, Swayam are helpful e-resources for many English language learners, teachers and other academicians. The Government of India encourages students and teachers by admitting them in online courses especially to improve their English language skills. Google Classroom, Youtube linkages on education are becoming more and more popular and become effective in the process of English language learning. With a lot of advancement today, the English language learners are provided with independent learning also. The advancement of e-reading and e-learning enhance the students to improve their English language skills.

AN OVERVIEW ON DIGITAL LIBRARY

Today, libraries are much more than storehouses for books, journals, and newspapers, in print form. Present day libraries apart from print resources, acquire e-resources, audio/visual material, multimedia material and other resources depending upon the demands from the users. This change is evident in all kinds of libraries. However, one thing that has not changed is the universe of information or knowledge; it is forever expanding and is continuing to do so at ever increasing speeds. One of the best examples of a digital library is, Digital Library of India (DLI).

Digital libraries in India: A scientometric assessment of publications during 2007–16

The paper examines 424 Indian publications in the domain of digital library research in India, as covered in Scopus database during 2007-16. India registered 10.95% growth in digital library research, averaged citation impact to 2.53 citations per paper, accounted for 12.03% share of internationally collaborative papers (ICP), and ranked 7 th highest in its global publication share. Around 53.54% of the total papers in Indian digital library research registered 1 or more citations per paper in 10 years during 2007-16. Computer science accounted for the highest publications share (60.14%) in India’s digital library research, followed by social sciences (40.57%), engineering (14.86%), and a few others. during 2007-16. About 159 organizations and 226 authors contributed to India’s output in digital library research during 2007-16. The top 25 and 20 most productive Indian organizations and authors accounted for 35.85% and 16.27% national publication share respectively and 16.27% and 19.55% national citation share respectively during 2007-16. Of the total 424 publications, the top 15 journals accounted for 53.29% share of national output in journal medium during 2007-16. DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology (with 23 papers) published most papers, followed by Annals of Library & Information Studies, Electronic Library and International Information and Library Review (8 papers each), Program (6 papers ), etc. during 2007-16.

Adoption of DSpace by Indian libraries

Purpose – India occupies second position among the countries that have adopted DSpace open source software for institutional repositories (IRs)/digital libraries (DLs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for DSpace being preferred over other software. It inspects various instances of Indian web-based DSpace systems including the nature and growth of collection, the geographical distribution of DSpace systems and the types of institutions that adopt and maintain DSpace. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from the official website of DSpace, Google search and from online discussion forums during July 2013 to January 2014. The 132 Indian DSpace links provided in the official DSpace website were examined. Further search was carried out on Google to identify Indian IRs and DLs that are not listed by the official website. A list of Indian DSpace websites prepared by the authors was sent to the online discussion forums for further updating. An online directory of Indian DSpace websites was created using WordPress which provided for the adding of comments. The study is limited to the web-based DSpace IRs and DLs in India. Findings – The majority of the Indian IRs and DLs listed on the official website of DSpace are not visible on the internet. Many links lead to institution websites, commercial websites and personal pages of authors. Out of 132 DSpace links, only 55 are visible on the internet to search and use. Indian libraries prefer DSpace over EPrints, Fedora and Greenstone. Many institutions could not maintain continuity of their DSpace systems in the online environment. Institutions having more funding are maintaining web-based DSpace systems. The size, economic conditions, rate of literacy and number of universities in an Indian state do not influence the maintenance of digital systems. Academic institutions involving universities, technical institutions and colleges lead in the adoption and maintenance of web-based DSpace in India. Private universities and colleges have adopted DSpace for IR/DL. Public libraries constitute a minimum percentage of web-based DSpace instances. Indian courts and Parliament have adopted DSpace. Shodhganga, the Indian ETD project, is running on DSpace. Originality/value – This is the first paper examining the adoption of DSpace by Indian libraries with a focus on online visibility and the strength of collection. It can be used to understand the pattern of technology adoption by Indian libraries over the years.

English

Digital Library of India (DLI) is an initiative taken by the Government of India to digitally preserve and disseminate all the significant literary, artistic, and scientific work of human available in India and thus, it has been made freely available, from every corner of the world, for education, study, appreciation, and for the future generations. The project started with the primary long-term objective of capturing all copyright free books and manuscripts, available in India, in digital format. The planning started with an aim to digitize one million books (less than one per cent of all books in all languages ever published) by 2005 in the first phase. Presently, it has succeeded in disseminating 537, 350 books with 187656339 pages in 46 languages (Indian and Foreign) available in India. The books and manuscripts are available on the website with free access at and . The Government of India has also taken initiatives to digitize cultural heritage, such as facts, monuments, heritage building, temples, and a thousand-year-old manuscripts and walkthrough.

Digital Library of India: Development So Far

All around the world many digital library initiatives have taken place, which look after the digitised content. In India, such an effort known as Digital Library of India (DLI) has been started. Many digitisation centres have been located around the country, which submit the digitised content to the DLI, which are funded by The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), Government of India. The initial target of the mission is one million books. So far much development has occurred and this paper tries to peep into this development.

Recent Growth and Developments in Open-Source Software on Digital Libraries in India

Open-source software (OSS) is a computer software that is available in source code form for which the source code and certain other rights, normally reserved for copyright holders, are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change and improve the software. OSS is popular with technically sophisticated users, who are often also the software developers, and has not yet made a significant impact on the desktop of most users. OSS has much potential for libraries and information centres, and there are a number of projects, including Greenstone, Dspace, Ganesha etc., that demonstrates its viability in this context. OSS is becoming an increasingly popular software development method. This paper describes what are an OSS and its features, software licensing, advantages and disadvantages. The paper mainly highlights the features, functions and use of some popular open source software like Greenstone, New Gen Lib, and DSpace and E-Granthalaya.

Creation of Digital Library of Manuscripts at Shivaji University, India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the digitization of rare materials in one Indian university.Design/methodology/approachThis paper highlights the digitization activities undertaken by Shivaji University Library to preserve rare materials. It attempts to calculate the costs incurred in the digitization process.FindingsThe paper finds that digitization is the solution for the preservation of, and access to, rare manuscripts.Practical implicationsThe paper provides the complete budget required for the digitization of manuscripts and also suggest best possible preservation and access strategy according to the local needs of the users.Originality/valueThe paper provides valuable insight into the development of digital libraries in India. It is useful for setting the infrastructure required for digitization and a guideline for preservation and access to the rare materials.

Digital Libraries in India: A Review

Recent years have seen several digital library development initiatives in India. To gain insight, assess and understand the growth, development and current status of digital library initiatives in India as reflected through scholarly journals, 63 published studies on digital libraries in India have been reviewed. The study reveals that most articles focus on developing digital libraries and digital collections except for a few studies on copyright issues and management of digital libraries. No studies have touched upon issues such as digital rights management, security and digital library policies.

Information retrieval features in Indian digital libraries: a critical appraisal

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the present situation in the development of indigenous digital libraries in India. The study aims to evaluate different retrieval features of Indian digital libraries, especially those provide access to multilingual and multimedia documents.Design/methodology/approachFor this study, eight digital libraries originated in India, which are available in 24×7 timeframe and accessible worldwide through the internet, have been identified and selected. The retrieval features and other information on these digital libraries have been collected mostly from their respective websites and from other published literature, annual reports, etc.FindingsThe paper finds that Indian digital libraries provide universal access to informative and culturally rich digital content related to South Asian region. The digitisation efforts in Indian institutions make these digital libraries operational.Research limitations/implicationsThe institutional repositories and open access archives of Indian institutions that give access to the current research literature are not included in this study, because their retrieval features are mostly similar to each other as they use either DSpace or GNU EPrints open source software.Practical implicationsIndigenous digital libraries in India provide universal access to information and knowledge related to culture and heritage of people of South Asian counties. This study gives an insight on how diverse contents are integrated and disseminated to the end‐users in a user‐friendly manner. This study also indicates research initiatives on different aspects of multilingual contents in this region.Originality/valueNo such evaluation on Indian digital libraries has been done from the perspective of information retrieval features. This study will generate new knowledge in area of indigenous digital libraries in a developing country like India. This study is also an attempt to popularise Indian indigenous digital libraries among the world community.

Towards a self healing information system for digital libraries

An important area of focus in complex systems development is the capability to adapt to variable runtime environmental resources and to accommodate runtime system failures. The research in this area is broadly termed as 'Self Healing' and has recently aroused increasing attention to complex systems. Digital libraries have gained popularity because of the richer features they provide compared to traditional libraries. As more users begin to use digital libraries, addressing downtimes of these valuable resources has become a high priority. Operating and providing access to digital content to anyone, anytime from anywhere in the world, results in a continued rise of administrative overhead for system monitoring and needs continuous human intervention. Given the volume of information and the huge infrastructure of modern libraries, continuous manual system administration is quite costly and not feasible. In this paper we propose a self healing digital library system as the solution to this problem and present the approach of adding self healing capabilities to an existing digital library project, the Digital Library of India (DLI). We also propose a self healing framework that enables successful reuse of our approach to other architecturally similar digital library systems.

Use of information and communication technology in libraries and information centres: an Indian scenario

This paper discusses the status of information and communication technologies usage in Indian libraries with special reference to special libraries and the efforts made by various institutions to propagate e‐information products and services. This paper highlights the consortia efforts in India like JCCC Consortium, INDEST Consortium, CSIR E‐journal Consortia, and UGC Infonet. It further discusses digitisation efforts in India at NISCAIR, New Delhi, IIITM, Kerala, C‐DAC Pune, and the Digital Library of India. In addition it incorporates details on major information systems in India (such as NISSAT)and major library networks in India (such as INFLIBNET, DELNET, CALIBNET etc.). The paper concludes with challenges for library and information science professionals and an overview of initiatives taken by Government of India.

SIG/III International Paper Competition: Papers on Practical Collaborative Applications of Digital Libraries

Editor's Note: As we have been reporting in the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, last year the ASIST Special Interest Group/International Information Issues (SIG/III) held an international competition for the best papers on practical collaborative applications of digital libraries or information science and technology in advancing communications, information and knowledge in the developing world. To be eligible, the principal author had to be a citizen of a developing country. In this issue of the Bulletin we present the winner of second place honors in the competition. The paper was written by Aashish Sharma of India and William Yurcik of the United States. In subsequent issues of the Bulletin we will publish a number of other entries, including the third place paper. Under the leadership of Sue O'Neill Johnson of the World Bank and Nathalie Leroy of the United Nations, SIG/III received 35 papers representing 20 developing countries. Six were awarded prizes and presented at the 2000 Annual Meeting. ASIST, with help of Academic Press and other donors, was able to fund some of the winning authors to come to Washington to present their work. Contest judges were Dr.Trudi Bellardo Hahn, University of Maryland; Dr. Ben-Ami Lipetz, State University of New York at Albany; and Dr. Bahaa El Hadidy, Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida. SIG/III is holding a similar competition for 2001. For more details and entry information, see the article in Inside ASIST in this issue of the Bulletin. Irene L. Travis, Editor Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 1. Kyiho Lee (Republic of South Korea). Construction of a Full-Text Database and Service System for Korean Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2. Aashish Sharma (India) and William Yurcik. The Emergence of Rural Digital Libraries in India: the Gyandoot Digital Library Intranet. 3. Chao-chen Chen, et al (Taiwan). The Design of Metadata Interchange for Chinese Information and Implementation of Metadata Management System. 4. Goswani (India). Statistical Databases in India: Toward a Better Dissemination. 5. Yan Quan Liu and Jin Zhang (China). Digital Library Infrastructure – A Case Study on Sharing Information Resources in China. 6. Duncan Wambogo Omole (Kenya). Information Science and Technology in Developing Countries.