SISCOM Apr-Jun 2004

An International Conference on Digital Libraries: Knowledge creation, preservation, access, and management was organized by the Department of Culture in partnership with The Energy & Resource Institute (TERI) at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi during 24-27 February, 2004.

The discussion on the theme of the Conference centered around Digital libraries: conceptual and theoretical aspects; Planning development, architecture, and management; Archiving cultural heritage and history through digitization; Content organization and knowledge management: discovery, organization, retrieval, and models; System scalability and interoperability; Mediation and user interaction; Metadata issues; Digital library policy and strategic planning.

Inaugurating the Conference, the President of India, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam said that knowledge has always been the prime mover for prosperity. A knowledge society is one of the basic foundations for the development of any nation. Knowledge has many forms and it is available at many places. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. Digital library is a new instrument, which can spread the knowledge nearly at the speed of light.

In the knowledge economy the objective of a society changes from fulfilling the basic needs of all round development to empowerment. The education system instead of going by text book teaching will be promoted by creative, interactive, self learning-formal and informal with focus on values, merit and quality. The workers instead of being skilled or semi-skilled will be knowledgeable, self-empowered and flexibly skilled. The type of work instead of being structured and hardware driven will be less structured and software driven. Management style will emphasize more on delegation rather than giving command. Impact on environment and ecology will be strikingly less compared to industrial economy. Finally, the economy will be knowledge driven and not industry driven.

The President said that knowledge Society has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The societal transformation is on education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. These will lead to employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity.

Dr Kalam added that the wealth generation is a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies such as information technology, biotechnology, space technology, weather forecasting, disaster management, tele-medicine and tele-education, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and Infotainment. These technologies and management structures have to work together to generate knowledge society.

Speaking on the knowledge management, Dr Kalam added that the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information, improves an employee’s comprehension in a specific area of interest.

Referring to the initiatives in India, he said that the Ministry of Information Technology (MIT) with IISc and Carnegie Mellon University as partners are fostering creativity and free access to all human knowledge. This digital library as a first step will create a free-to-read searchable collection of one million books by 2005

1. Textbooks: School children have been experiencing difficulties in getting textbooks in time, especially for the primary and secondary classes. It will be useful to digitize and store the textbooks in the library, which can be accessed by the students whenever required.

Home Library where the digital library should be user friendly and should give explicit information, irrespective of place, educational or economic status.

The future Digital libraries would have speech interface so that the user could interact with the information and will be language independent.

Digital Libraries would include, besides the books, manuscripts and journals, information and our heritage in all other forms including speech, folk songs, paintings and carvings.

Traditional System Storage, which will store information relating to literature, music, traditional system of medicine and science embedded in palm leaves. it is necessary to search, understand and preserve this valuable information.

2. Tele-education: there is a need to integrate the tele-education system with Digital library so that the students can read and refer to the books suggested by the teacher.

3. Government File Storage: Presently files occupy lot of valuable space in our State and Central Government Offices. It is essential to segregate the important files, which have to be preserved for a long duration. These segregated files have to be digitized and stored in the digital library. This will enable easy search, faster location of data and also release huge space occupied by physical cupboards in our offices.

4. Land Record Storage: Land records have to be digitized and verified with satellite imagery and stored, which needs to be linked with e governance applications for issue, transfer. conversions and additions and deletions. It should be linked with the revenue collection, estate management, and municipal records.

5. Voters’ List Digital Book: Digital data of a voter should be made available on-line over the Internet for all the States and Union territories as a digital book for reference.

6. Modification to Copyright Act The copyright Act was evolved when the rate of generation of new books and journals was low and it prescribed the protection period as fifty years in India. There is a need to re-look at the lock-in period of copyright documents.

In conclusion, Dr Kalam said that Digital Library is a national mission. We should see that all the schools, colleges, and universities digitize their libraries in their own native languages and connect to the outside world within 4 years. We have to ensure availability of fibre optic cables, satellite communication and wireless infrastructure especially in remote areas. It is also essential to realize high bandwidth technology like Multiple 10 Giga Bits connectivity across the country.

The British Library, UK gives customers fast access to over a billion items - providing a one- stop shop for information. For customers this means that almost anything from the library’s huge collections - whether born digital, in print or in microform - can be delivered to a desktop within two hours it needed.

This Electronic Delivery service, fully available from autumn 2003, is based on Adobe Reader 6.0 software and Relais International scanning and delivery technology. Since the Library launched the world’s first fully copyright compliant secure electronic delivery service - for digital documents

- in December 2002, it has succeeded in obtaining extensive agreements for secure electronic delivery with many of the worlds leading scientific publishers.

The addition of scanning technology to the Library’s services means that, from autumn 2003, it will be able to supply virtually all of the materials listed in its catalogues as well as from its inside electronic table of contents service - via secure electronic delivery direct to the researcher’s PC.

The library holds the vast majority of the items listed in its catalogues, with most available for secure electronic delivery. That means it offers unrivalled coverage and speed of service, day or night - supplying most orders directly from its collections.

Customers will be able to choose from a range of delivery options - with secure electronic delivery available within two hours of ordering if needed. Investment in specially adapted digital scanning stations means the Library can provide high resolution electronic documents, whilst the addition of high speed Xerox printers ensures top quality hard-copy documents for postal delivery.

The Webster Board is an interactive white board that turns computer and projector into a powerful tool for teaching, collaborating and presenting. It instantly captures everything written or drawn on its surface. It can transform meeting or classroom into a more productive environment by allowing participants to listen and participate instead of taking notes. At the end of the session, one can save notes to a computer to print, e-mail, tax, or upload to the web.

The Webster TS series interactive projection surface enables users to control a linked macintosh or PC from the whiteboard, further enhancing the session’s productivity.

The tour-point calibration process and icon strip located on the board make the system easy to set up and operate. When used in conjunction with teleconferencing products, one can simultaneously broadcast whiteboard displays to remote participant in real time.

It. is ideal for classrooms and business education environments; Webster IS series is an economical, interactive visual communication solution.

The American Humanities Index, produced by Whitston Publishing (an imprint of EBSCO Publishing), USA, now contains more than hart a million records drawn from more than 1,000 literary, scholarly and creative journals published in the United States and Canada. Dating back to 1975 the database also includes many smaller journals and publications The Index provides cover-to-cover indexing of journal content, including citations for all original creative works, such as poetry and fiction.

available through the popular EBSCOhost online research service since January 2003.

Organizer: Society for Information Science & Indian Institute at Management Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Organizer : Society for Information Science & Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow

ICIM 2005 International Conference on Information Management In a Knowledge Society

Organizer : Indian Association of Special Libraries & Information Centres (IASLIC), Calcutta

Padmashri Prof. Kaula Felicitated

The library team at the India Institute of Management, Lucknow felicitated the recipient of the prestigious Padmashri award, Prof. R N. Kaula on April 8, 2004. Senior library professionals and students in the field of library and information science were present on the occasion.

Prof. Roshan Lal Raina, while congratulating Prof. Kaula on receiving the prestigious award, threw light on his multifaceted contributions to the field of library and information science.

Speaking on the occasion, Director I Lucknow, Dr. Devi Singh, lauded Prof. Kaula ’s efforts in taking the profession to its present heights.

Inspiring the young students, through an emotional and thought provoking speech, Prof. Kaula exhorted them to work hard.

A Logistics Resource Center (LRC) on Family Welfare, has been set up at the Library Learning Resource Center at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. The Center was formally inaugurated on April 28, 2004 by Mr. Rajendra Bhonwal, Principal Secretary, Family Welfare (GOUP).

The simple inauguration ceremony started with a warm welcome by Professor S. Chakravarty, who used the opportunity to provide an overview of IIML activities in the social sector, and background towards establishment of the LRC.

Mr. Sunil Garg (JSI-Deliver USA) while thanking IIML for the wonderful effort it had put in, expressed hope that the LAC would go a long way in helping the professionals engaged in this sector, in discharging their duties more effectively.

Speaking on the occasion, Dean, Development and Planning (IIML), Professor Bharat

Bhasker illustrated as to how such initiatives of IIML would facilitate in improving the Human Development Index of the country.

Dr. Devi Singh, Director IIML, in his remarks outlined the need and relevance of such learning resource centres in improving the health scenario of the country. He also emphasized that the logistics management system proposed by IIML for UP could be of help to other states of the country, as well.

The Chief Guest Mr. Bhonwal, after inaugurating the LRG, illustrated the problems faced by the existing logistics management system and expressed confidence that the resource materials, developed by IIML would go a long way in overcoming these problems.

Towards the end, Professor Roshan Lal Raina, while proposing a vote of thanks to the Chief Guest and other dignitaries present on the occasion, reiterated that the LRC would go all out in trying to meet the information needs of professionals engaged in this sector.

Form IV

I Kuldip Chand hereby declare that the particulars given above are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Honorary Editor: Kuldip Chand, Scientist, NISCAIR, Dr K. S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi-110 012

Printed and Published by Dr Ramesh Kundra, Secretary, SIS. C/o NISTADS, Dr Dr K. S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi-110 012