Library_PRSU: Towards Digitization

Mohammed Imtiaz Ahmed*

Assistant Librarian, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur (C.G.)

INTRODUCTION:

The library of this university, which is named after Pt. Sundarlal Sharma the legendry freedom fighter and social reformer, is housed in a four storied functional independent building with greenery all around, in a peaceful environment, located at the heart of the campus. This library, which is unmatched, to any other library of this region, so far its services, collection, staff and readers are concerned, was established in 1965.

Apart from providing all conventional services for the satisfaction of readers ranging from under graduate students to eminent scholars, this library is having computer network facility with VSAT connectivity. Seven computers with this facility have been dedicated to readers only for there e-reading. Library has a separate reprographic section equipped with digital photocopiers, scanners and also microfilms reader.

Library remains open from 8.00 AM to 6.00 PM on all days including holidays and Sundays (11to4 on holidays).

A total of 320 seating arrangements are presently available in four floors of library with two independent reading halls for 'textbooks' and ‘research periodicals' respectively.

More than 100 World's most important encyclopedias and about 15 best indexing and abstracting periodicals are available in library. This library was selected as one among eleven University libraries in India for computerization and automation under INFLIBNET programme of UGC.

Our library has been selected to participate in the first phase of UGC-INFONET. Under this programme, our library avails VSAT connectivity, through campus LAN, for utilization of e-resources under UGC-Infonet e-journal consortium, which is providing databases and full text access to about 3500 e-journals of 21 worlds leading and scholarly publishers.

This library has been receiving the World Bank Publications free of cost directly from Washington under their very few-selected ' Depository Library Programme '.

Library Holdings:

BOOKS	Nos.
1. Purchase http://stnweb.cas.org/	112413
2. Gift	24644
3. World Bank http://www.rsc.org/	8705
4. Thesis and Dissertations	22267
TOTAL	168029

PERIODICALS	Nos.
1. Current Indian Journals	244
2. Current Foreign Journals	74
3. Bound volumes of Journals	19752

UGC Infonet:

The Information and Library network (INFLIBNET) Center had started the subscription of E-journal under consortium model for the Indian Universities, which will further be extended to colleges. Now it has set out to be a major player in promoting scholarly communication among academician and researchers in India by:

· Forming a consortium among the Universities,

· Promoting library network,

· Website training,

· E-resource development,

· Subscripting e-journal,

· Archival maintenance, etc.

· Indian Universities constitute one of the largest higher education systems in the world, with more than 300 Universities/Institutions and more than 15000 affiliated colleges, around 100 lakh students and 5 lakh teachers. It is great challenge to ensure effective coordination and communication. Indian Universities need to be given the required thrust to enter the third millennium with a leading edge, to fulfill this requirement INFLIBNET has provided some free online national and international journals.

The journal and Publisher sites which are available on INFLIBNET e-consortia:

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES
Chemical Abstracts Service (1 Database) http://stnweb.cas.org/	(3) Natural Product Update http://www.rsc.org/is/database/npuhome.htm
Biological Abstracts (1 Database) http://web5.silverplatter.com/webspirs/start.ws?customer=c180470	(4) Chemical Hazards in Industry http://www.rsc.org/is/database/chihome.htm
Royal Society of Chemistry (6 Databases) http://www.rsc.org/	(6) Catalysts and Catalysed Reactions http://www.rsc.org/is/database/ccrpub.htm
(1) Laboratory Hazards Bulletin http://www.rsc.org/is/database/lhbhome.htm	MathSciNet Database ( 1Database) http://web5.silverplatter.com/webspirs/start.ws?customer=c180470
(2) Methods in Organic Synthesis http://www.rsc.org/is/database/moshome.htm	(5) Analytical Abstracts http://www.rsc.org/is/database/aahome.htm

FULL TEXT DATABASES
American Chemical Society (31) http://www.pubs.acs.org/	American Physical Society (10) http://www.aps.org/
American Institute of Physics (18) http://www.aip.org/	Oxford University Press http://www.oxfordjournals.org
Taylor and Fracis (1105) http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk	Annual Reviews (29) http://arjournals.annualreviews.org
Cambridge University Press (189) http://journals.cambridge.org/	Blackwell http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/
Elsevier Science (34) http://www.sciencedirect.com/	Springer and Kluwar Journals (1217) http://www.springerlink.com/
Emerald (28) http://www.emeraldinsight.com	Science Online (1) http://www.scienceonline.org/
Encyclopedia Britannica http://search.eb.com/	: Royal Society of Chemistry (23) http://www.rsc.org/
Institute of Physics (36) http://www.iop.org/EJ	Project Muse (222) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals
J-STOR (457) http://www.jstor.org/	Portland Press (4 ) http://www.portlandpress.com/pp/default.htm
: Nature (1) http://www.nature.com/
PORTALS
J-Gate Gateway Portal (15000) http://www.j-gate.informindia.co.in/	Ingenta - Gateway Portal (5400) http://www.ingenta.com/

We have provided all these e-journals to all departments of our university through campus local area network (LAN), and this facility is available in our library also.

Automation of Library:

In the first Phase of automation of the library, we used CDS/ISIS software, for which the author (IMTIAZ) was trained at DRTC, Bangalore. We had created almost 50% database of our holdings according to the CDS/ISIS, but there was a problem with the CDS/ISIS. Different modules of this software needed to create different entry of same holding, it means that software was very memory consuming, time consuming and the modules were not integrated.

After some time INFLIBNET introduced new library software named SOUL. This software is being used by different universities. We also shifted to SOUL because of being integrated database and comparatively very less time and memory consuming qualities. UGC provides grants for SOUL to different universities. The database of SOUL is created such as where data interchanging with different universities is very easy.

Creation of computerized database of all the books available in library has been completed and made available to the readers in the form of Online Public Access Catalogue. Now we have computerized our circulation system.

We will very soon introduce our library as a DIGITAL LIBRARY.

What is Digital Library?

The Digital Libraries are electronic libraries where the information is acquired, stored and retrieved in digital form. Digital Libraries are the group-interlinked workstations connected to the high-speed network.

It is a system of distributed databases, most often full-text and multimedia, accessible online on computer network. The important component of a digital library is a 'digital object' or 'information object', which may be textual, audio, video, image, numeric computer programs or multimedia composites of such components.

Why Digital Library?

Modern technology has radically altered the nature of our society and style of working of the people. Modern user needs maximum information in minimum time. Accordingly modern libraries trying to provide timely access to relevant information by introducing new techniques to provide rapid access to precise information. The traditional process of organizing, retrieving, and dissemination of information are out of date and time consuming. The information technology is now a day highly effective in meeting the need of the present era, as computers have become increasingly a part of modern life. Therefore, more libraries are opting for computerization.

Functions:-

The basic functions of digital libraries are to:

· Improve the cost effectiveness of library operations,

· Capture, store, manipulate information and provide access to a large collection,

· Provide facilities for networking and resource sharing,

· Digitize documents for preservation and for space saving,

· Maintain other office works,

· Introduce and provide user-friendly interface and new services,

· Make information avail for a longer time,

· Support advanced search and retrieval for enable greater access for information.

Advantages: -

There are many advantages of digitization of a library. Some of the major advantages are as follows:

· A user can access E-Resources from anywhere, at any time, provided he has access to the necessary infrastructure,

· Information is always available, as the library is never closed, materials are never checked out, never misplaced or stolen,

· Though initially, it may be expensive but in the long run, it saves a lot of money, time and space,

· It have a lot of storage capacity to store huge data that promotes universal accessibility,

· Preserve rare books that may be damaged by over and over use and poor storage condition,

· Facilitate multiple accesses,

· Provide downloading and printing facilities,

Copyright Act of India:-

Digital library provides new ways of preservation and dissemination of library collections. But the different stages of digitization of the materials in a library involve many copyright issues.

The person who creates the work is considered the author and the copyright ownership generally rests with the creator, like author of the literacy work, composer of the musical work, dramatist of the dramatic work and artist of the artistic work.

Copyright is not a single right but a bundle of rights. It includes the right of reproduction, issuing of copies and communication to the public adaptation. These are transferable rights. The owner can transfer the rights through assignments or testamentary dispositions or through inheritance.

In the cases of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works published during the life time of the author, the last until expiry of sixty years following the death of the author, the count down starting from the calendar year following the death of the author. In other cases it is sixty years from the year of publication. After expiry of the copyright the work can be freely used.

Proposed activities in Pt. Sundarlal Sharma Library: -

1. All Ph.D. theses will be converted in to digital form so that it can be accessed on line on our campus network.

2. Rare and out of print books, which don't come under the purview of copy right Act or in other words which are 50 years old will be converted into digital form.

3. Digital resources will be acquired in the library and made available on line on campus network.

4. E-reading room will be established at all floors with at least 20 terminals.

Requirements for Digital Library: -

For establishing Digital Library various hardware and software are needed to be integrated for the development and deployment of digital libraries to access collection of digital information in network environment. The basic components for establishing Digital Library System are as follows.

Firstly a room with dust and humidity free atmosphere has to be created which will act as the digital library workshop.

Proposed Infrastructure of LIBRARY_PRSU

Hardware: -

· Digital Computer powered by high speed XEON Dual processor with high capacity hard disk and RAM for Server in the LAN, Web Server and FTP Server etc;

· Desktop Workstations powered by P-IV - PCs;

· Capture Devices such as Scanners, Digital Cameras.

· High capacity USB hard disk.

· High Power UPS (Preferably 20KVA).

· Secondary Storage of Output Devices comprising of CD/DVD ROM Disk (R and RW), Data Compression Device;

Software: -

· Operating system software windows 2003;

· Scanning software;

· Adobe acrobat reader;

· CD/DVD read-write software;

· Digital library software i.e. Dspace, Eprint etc.

· Web Designing Software like Java, front Page (MS-OFFICE 2000).

Human Resource:-

Information communication professionals needed in a digital library should have following skills:

· Fundamental networking skills,

· Web programming skills by HTML, ASP, PHP, or any web programming language,

· Basic understanding for digitization,

· Sound knowledge for digital library architecture, systems and software,

· New digital library product and service design skills

· Document and Information Management skills.

It is evident that digital library will require new or specially trained personnel to develop and run them effectively and efficiently. It may be more productive if we choose staff that can evolve as the needs of the organization change.

REFERENCES:

1) NISO Framework Advisory Group. "A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections." National Information Standards Organization, 2nd edition, 2004. <http://www.niso. org/framework/Framework2.html>

2) Smith, Abby. Strategies for Building Digitized Collections. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, September 2001. <http://www.clir.org/pubs/ reports/pub101/contents.html> HOLLIS# BQQ3942

3) Tanner, Simon. "Librarians in the digital age: planning digitiszation projects," Aslib, Vol 35, No 4, October 2001. <http://www.aslib.co.uk/program/2001/oct/01.html>

4) Smith, Abby. Why Digitize? Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, February 1999.

<http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub80.html>

5) Gorman G.E.,"Information services in an electronic environment", Library association publishing, London, 2001.

Received on 02.11.2010

Accepted on 15.11.2010