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Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 1 Digital Library Service at Higher Education in India Goutam Biswas Research Fellow, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India Email: goutambiswas8@gmail.com Abstract The paper has discussed various issues like definition and advantage digital library, various types of digital library softwares etc. Universities and research institutes have played a leading role in transforming the country into a mod ern industrialized and technologically advanced state. The green revolution and tremendous progress in dairy development have made India a major food -producing country. Its development of space technology, the production and launching of indigenous satelli tes, and the development of peaceful nuclear energy have brought it into the forefront of technologically advanced nations to which a large number of developing countries look for training and guidance. Indian universities and institutes of higher learning support the needs and aspirations of Indian students and scholars. The libraries of those institutions also play a vital role in acquiring and disseminating information for academic and research activities. Digital libraries are a way of making educationa l and research data and information available to faculty, researchers, students, and others at the institutions and worldwide. Introduction The library has, since long, been considered to be the source and power of knowledge and also the knowledge base. In higher education and research, the library has specific functions to facilitate the extensive use of learning resources by students, teachers, and researchers. With the growth of literature in large numbers even in the same field, these Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 2 groups of library users have faced problems in identifying the appropriate literature for their use and consultation in a desired timeframe. Information and communications technology (ICT), particularly during the last two decades, has significantly contributed to open t he door of accessing, hidden, knowledge in a highly efficient manner. Initially, the ICT was used in the library environment for developing databases of in-formation resources mainly aiming at storing and retrieving information on various types of publicat ion resources and also to organize various types of information services. The ICT has put us in the electronic environment to help identify, assess, acquire, record, store, organize, and disseminate information and information resources according to the ne ed of specific requirements and/or of an organization or an individual requirement. The use of IT in libraries has enhanced efficiency in all aspects of information acquisition, storage, and transfer. Its magical opportunities have dramatically changed the operations of the library and its information services. With the new facilities, the traditional libraries have been modernized to make these as well-equipped and inter-connected electronic resource centres. Definition According to Wikipedia A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media) and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks. A digital library is a type of information retrieval system.The first use of the term digital library in print may have been in a 1988 report to the Corporation for National Research Initiatives The term digital libraries was first popularized by the NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative in 1994.The older names electronic library or virtual library are also occasionally used, though electronic library nowadays more often refers to portals, often provided by government agencies, as in the case of the Florida Electronic Library. The DELOS Digital Library Reference Model defines a digital library as: Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 3 An organization, which might be virtual, that comprehensively collects, manages and preserves for the long term rich digital content, and offers to its user communities specialized functionality on that content, of measurable quality and according to codified policies Advantage of Digital Library: Digital library has certain characteristics, which make them different from traditional library. It has expansive and accurat e system of searching with large volumes of text, image and audio-video resources. Digital libraries do not need physical space to build collection and it can be accessed from anywhere, any time. Different people can access same source at the same time. The advantages of digital libraries are mentioned herein below: Preserve the valuable documents, rare and special collections of libraries, archives and museums. Provide faster access to the holding of libraries world wide through automated catalogues. Help to locate both physical and digitized versions of scholarly articles and books through single interface. Search optimization, simultaneous searches of the Internet make possible, preparing commercial databases and library collections. Offering online learning environment. Making short the chain from author to user. Save preparation/ conservation cost, space and money. Digital technology affords multiple, simultaneous user from a single original which are not possible for materials stored in any other f orms Limitations, and constraints in development, of digital library Digital libraries cannot possibly replace the environment of a physical library, as we still like to see and browse reading materials physically and get attracted more to read these. Lack of skills in handling computer viruses and lack of standardization for digitized materials are important limitations. While there are obvious benefits of digitization, the Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 4 major problem is, however, ensuring the quality of digitized materials. The other problems are access management, determination of authenticity of materials, and control of unauthorized access and use. Access being open, through the Internet, many people may be indulged in browsing vulgar resources. Sometimes, it may take a long time to access literatures that are immediately needed. It may happen that computers and other related facilities remain paralyzed in absence of regular maintenance and replacements of necessary equipment. The development of the digital library system at least i nvolves (a) digitization (data conversion, data organization, etc.) and (b) establishment of linkages to digitized publications. Development of databases only does not mean digital library. Digitization also involves hardware and software costs, staff cost , outsourcing cost, cost of various related activities before and after digitization, such as movement of physical items, copyright clearance, creation of records, indexes, and so on. The development of a digital library system demands incurring of "large costs for the conversion of print materials into digital format, for the technical skills of staff to maintain them, and for the costs of maintaining online access (i.e. servers, bandwidth costs, etc.)." Data from the old system to the new system would also need additional costs. The initial cost (cost of hardware, software, ground stations or leasing communication circuit, etc.) is rather high. For fast access and transmit files, the system needs high bandwidth. In the Internet environment, it is difficu lt to monitor and keep track of information resources used for subsequent use. Users face the problem of 'information overload', receive unwanted information, data, or resources, and provision of services may be disrupted unless access or facilities are en sured. Dspace Digital Library System The Dspace is a joint project of the MIT Libraries and HP labs. Dspace is a digital asset management system. It helps create, index and retrieve various forms digital content. Dspace is adaptable to different communi ty needs. Interoperability between systems is Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 5 built-in and it adheres to international standards for metadata format. There is various reasons to choose this software: Dspace is an open source technology platform which can be customized or extend its capab ilities. Greenstone Digital Library Software The Greenstone Digital Library Software from the New Zealand Digital Library project provides a new way of organizing information and making it available over the Internet. Collections of information comprise large numbers of documents (typically several thousand to several million), and a uniform interface is provided to them. Libraries include many collections, individually organized -- though bearing a strong family resemblance. A configuration file determin es the structure of a collection. Existing collections range from newspaper articles to technical documents, from educational journals to oral history, from visual art to videos, from MIDI pop music collections to ethnic folksongs. [1] Eprints EPrints is free software developed by the University of Southampton, England. ePrints@IISc repository collects preserves and disseminates in digital format the research output created by the IISc research community. It enables the Institute community to deposit their preprints; post prints and other scholarly publications using a web interface, and organises Fedora Fedora is a center for innovation in free and open source software, and creates a community where developers and open source enthusiasts come together to advance free and open source software. The Fedora community contributes everything it builds back to the free and open source world and continues to make advances of significance to the broader community. Fedora is a by Linux based operating system that pr ovides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital material created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of the digital materials including long term Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 6 preservation. An effective digital preservation and institutional repository of necessity represents collaboration among libraries, information te chnologies, archives and record managers, faculty and University administrators and policy makers [2]. Initiatives of Digital Preservation System and Digital Repositories in India A digital preservation is a digital archive of the intellectual output of an organization/institution. It makes the quality and breath of scholarship produces at the organisation accessible to others world wide over the Internet. It is a set of services that a University/Organization offers to the term preservation of this wealt h of knowledge through digitization projects and digital preservation initiatives. Diverse multi -cultural and multilingual contents are now being documented, preserved with the adoption of Open Source Software System and made available through the internat ionally acclaimed Digital Preservation and Repository initiatives such as members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital material created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commi tment to the stewardship of the digital materials including long term preservation. An effective digital preservation and institutional repository of necessity represents collaboration among libraries, information technologies, archives and record managers , faculty and University administrators and policy makers [3] Diverse multi-cultural and multilingual contents are now being documented, preserved with the adoption of Open Source Software System and made available through the internationally acclaimed Digital Preservation and Repository initiatives such as [4]: National Level Digital Preservations Repositories: Catalysis Database www.eprints.iitm.ac.in drtc.isibang.ac.in/ Used: DSpace Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 7 Institutional Repositories: Technology Rourkela http://dspace.nitrkl .ac.in/dspace/ tations of Indian Institute of Science (ETD@IISc) http:// etd.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Publications (ePrints@IISc) http://eprints.iis c.ernet.in/ tp://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/ dspace.library.iitb.ac.in/dspace/ Astrophysicshttp://ncralib.ncra.tifr.res .in:8080/dspace/ Software Used: Dspace DSpace@IIMK http://dspace.iimk.ac.in/ Software Used: DSpace DSpace at National Chemical Laboratory http://dspace.ncl.res.in/dspace/ Software Used: DSpace DSpace@INFLIBNET http:// dspace.inflibnet.ac.in/ Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 8 Software Used: DSpace University of Delhi EPrint Archive http:// eprints.du.ac.in/ Software Used: EPrints Raman Research Institute Digital Repository http://dspace.rri.res.in:8080/dspace/ Software Used: DSpace One World South Asia Open Archive Initiative http://open.ekduniya .net/Software Used: EPrints Digital Library: Archives of Indian Labour: Integrated Labour History Research Programme www.indialabourarchives.org Software Used: Greenstone Digital Library Software India Education Digital Library www.edudl.gov.in Software Used: Greenstone Digital Library Software Vidyanidhi www.vidyanidhi.org.in Software Used: Dspace National Mission of manuscript Digitisaton India has one of the oldest and largest collections of manuscripts in the world. These are in different languages and scripts, and written on materials such as birch bark, palm leaf, cloth, paper, etc. They are in libraries, museums, monasteries, and in the collections of individuals. A significant portion is not archaically preserved. Experts estimate that most palm leaf manuscripts will perish due to wear and tear over the next 50 to 100 years. The National Mission for Manuscripts has taken a significant step. The Department of Culture, and Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India, launched the Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 9 National Mission for Manuscripts in February 2003. The objectives of the mission are to facilitate conservation and preservation of manuscripts through training, awareness, and financial support; to document, catalogue, and promote access to Indian manuscr ipts and to encourage scholarship and research. In addition, the Central Secretariat Library (CSL), in the Department of Culture, has undertaken the massive task of digitizing government document resources. Expected benefits are the creation of a National Directory of Custodial Institutions and Individuals and Subject Directories; a National Manuscript Library to provide central access; raising awareness of the rich intellectual heritage of India; providing policy inputs to conserve, preserve, digitized, im prove access, and save manuscripts for posterity; creating interest among scholars and institutions to for training in traditional Indian languages and subjects; and improving accessibility to all the stakeholders. [5] ETD and Institutional Repository Theses and dissertations are the bedrock of graduate education. Thesis and dissertation research is guided by experts in the field and frequently funded by highly competitive scholarships and grants. Theses and dissertations are useful sources of secondary information, particularly in the humanities, where texts are important and ideas stay current longer. Most of these works languish in college and university libraries and archives. Electronically publishing of theses and dissertations brings this valuable material more prominence. An Institutional Repository (IR) is a digital archive of the intellectual output of a university. Theses and dissertations are one basic category of material for an IR. Vidyanidhi Projects Vidyanidhi (which means “treasure of knowl edge” in Sanskrit) is a digital archive of dissertations, as well as a set of resources for doctoral research in India. Vidyanidhi is being developed as a national repository and a consortium for electronic dissertations, through participation and partners hip with universities, academic institutions, and other stakeholders. Vidyanidhi began as a pilot project in 2000 with governmental support, Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 10 well as support from the Ford Foundation and Microsoft India. The Ford Foundation support is for focusing on Social and Human Sciences. The Microsoft support is for the implementation of Unicode for Indian Languages. Vidyanidhi is a member of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), and UNESCO and other efforts in this direction. UNESCO suppor ts ETD initiatives worldwide Electronic Theses and Dissertation Project of INFLIBNET Centre INLIBNET hosts bibliographic database 200,000 dissertations from about two hundred Indian universities going back to 1905. The Repository uses DSpace, which compli es with the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) framework allowing publications to be easily indexed and searched by web search engines and other indexing services. Various Institute also created Intuitional Repository like: Indian Institute of Astrophysics, R aman Research Institute, National Chemical Laboratory, National Institute of Oceanography, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Indian Institute of Management, Kozikode, National Institute of Technology, Calicut, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, etc. Need for Collaboration and Sustainability Among the initiatives described above, only a few government institutes have s hown their interest. Out of three hundred universities in India, only two, the University of Hyderabad and the University of Mysore, have taken up digitization initiatives. The remaining institutions need funds, manpower, and guidelines from the UGC and th eir state governments. The vision should be an Indian information infrastructure linking education, research, government, and business. Questions of funding and governance, as well as technical issues, require the participation of state and national govern ments. Conclusion Digital libraries and digitization are crucial for disseminating and preserving knowledge. Digital library activities are gathering momentum in developing countries, especially India. Since most higher education and research institutions in India are funded and Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 11 controlled by the central and state governments, clear -cut national plans and polices are needed for infrastructure, standards, metadata, interoperability, multi -lingual databases, training, co-ordination, copyright, and archiving a nd preservation methods, so that our heritage of knowledge and culture can the ravages of time and present and future generations can benefit and be guided by them. A digital library association with interested library professionals may be formed to create aware-ness among policy-makers, professionals, and users of information resources, including those who need information but are located at the village level and to achieve the goal of developing the digital library system for India. Although the library world is moving towards digitization of information resources and provision of electronic-based information-support services, it is believed and likely that the future library world will be the combination of traditional library, electronic, digital or virtual library. Reference: 1.Ian H. Witten, David Bainbridge, Stefan J. Boddie, “Greenstone Open -Source Digital Library Software”, D-Lib Magazine, Volume 7 Number 10, October 2001, ISSN 1082- 9873 2. Wikipedia, Available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview (Accessed on 13/01/2009). 3. Purnima Meitei, L Shanta and Devi , “Open Source Initiative in Digital Preservation: The Need for an Open Source Digital Repository and Preservation System ”, 7th International CALIBER-2009, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, February 25 -27, 2009 4. Das, Anup Kumar “Open Access to Knowledge and Information. Published in Open Access to Knowledge and Information in South Asia: Scholarly Literature and Digital Library Initiatives-The South Asian Scenario”, Edited by Bimal Kanti Sen and Jocelyne Josiah. New Delhi: UNESCO, 2008. Paper Presented at Two days UGC Sponsored National Level Conference, DLIS, Smt. L.R.T College of Commerce in collaboration with Vidrabha Library A ssociation, Akola, held on December 18-19,2009 12 5. Varatharajan, N and Chandrashekara, M. “ “Digital Library Initiatives at Higher Education and Research Institutions in India,” N. Varatharajan, M. Chandrashekara. Library Philosophy and Practice 2007 (December), ISSN 1522-0222 6. M. Shamsul Islam Khan [et al.] , “Impact of Digital Library on Higher Education and Research in Bangladesh” Available at. http://www.balid.org/seminar-2006-digitallibrary- khan.html [Access on 10.09.2009]
