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Digital Libraries in India: A Review

G. Mahesh and Rekha Mittal

National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources, New Delhi, India

Introduction

It is well recognized that libraries all over theworld are undergoing transformation, especiallyowing to the development in information andcommunication technologies. Traditional librariesare changing to digital libraries and new librariesthat are being set up are increasingly of the digitalkind. As a result, there is widespread interest andconsequently, a lot of research and developmentactivities are being carried out in this area worldover. In India a number of institutions are alsoin the process of setting up digital libraries andmany scholars and practitioners are conductingresearch on digital libraries.In recent years, quite a few conferences on digi-tal libraries and their various facets have been or-ganized in India. In addition to many national con-ferences, international conferences such as theInternational Conference of Asian Digital Libraries(ICADL) 2001, International Conferences on Digi-tal Libraries (ICDL) 2004 and 2006 gave necessaryimpetus to digital library awareness and develop-ments in India. Both ICADL 2001 and ICDL 2004were reported as widely attended (Kar & Seadle2004; Urs & Raghavan 2002).Although conference proceedings are a vital pri-mary source of information, marginal papers getincluded in proceedings many times as papersmay not go through the peer-reviewing process.On the other hand, scholarly journals with theirpeer-reviewing mechanism have better quality pa-pers and further, and more importantly, owing totheir coverage in abstracting and indexing databases, the visibility and readership of papers pub-lished in scholarly journals are much greater thanconference proceedings.India publishes about 20 scholarly journals inthe ﬁeld of library and information science. Ar-ticles on digital libraries in India have been pub-lished in Indian and foreign journals. A review ofIndian and foreign periodicals literature publishedon digital libraries in India would be useful toassess and understand the state of digital libraryresearch and development in India.

Methodology

The literature review was limited to published ar-ticles covered by Library and Information ScienceAbstracts (LISA), Library, Information Scienceand Technology Abstracts (LISTA), and EmeraldInsight databases. These databases were searchedfor the entire duration up to June 2007. Multiplesearch strategies were used on the keywords, ‘digi-tal libraries’, ‘digital library’ and ‘India’. Results ofthese searches were reviewed to identify relevantarticles. The references of the relevant articles

G. Mahesh is a scientist, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources, 14-Satsang Vihar Marg, NewDelhi – 110067, India. E-mail: gmahesh@niscair.res.inRekha Mittal is a scientist, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources, 14-Satsang Vihar Marg, NewDelhi – 110067, India. E-mail: rekha@niscair.res.in

Libri, 2008, vol. 58, pp. 15–24Printed in Germany All rights reservedCopyright Saur 2008

Libri

ISSN 0024-2667

Recent years have seen several digital library developmentinitiatives in India. To gain insight, assess and understandthe growth, development and current status of digital li braryinitiatives in India as reﬂected through scholarly journals,63 published studies on digital libraries in India have beenreviewed. The study reveals that most articles focus on de- veloping digital libraries and digital collections except for a few studies on copyright issues and management of digitalli braries. No studies have touched upon issues such as digital rights management, security and digital library policies.

10.1515/libr.2008.002

16G. Mahesh and Rekha Mittal

were further studied to collect articles that werenot covered by these databases. This resulted inthe 63 articles that were used for this study.

Results

The study reveals that most articles focus on digi-tization efforts and collection building, thereby ondeveloping digital libraries and digital collections.There are few articles on copyright issues andmanagement of digital libraries. Various issuessuch as digital rights management, security andpolicies have not been touched. A summary ofﬁndings of the study is presented below.

An overview

It is generally accepted in many studies that digi-tal library initiatives in India began in the 1990sand this review also found that most of Indianliterature on digital libraries is post-1995. One ofthe earliest articles giving an overview of digitallibraries in India is by Rajashekar (1997b); thislucid article discusses the many advantages ofdigital libraries and the issues involved in theircreation.Srivastava and Saxena (2004) have also writtenan overview of digital libraries. Sharma and Aro-ra (2005) highlighted the need for digital librariesalong with the requirements, digitization processand future of digital libraries. One of the challengesof digital libraries discussed by Sadagopan(2000) includes availability of information at theﬁngertips but questions, where is knowledge. Digi-tal libraries in the Indian context are discussed andthe author highlights the opportunities availableto library scientists for creating and accessing con-tent in Indian languages.Even as the digital library era was being usheredinto Indian libraries and information centres, the

DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology

cameout with a special issue on digital libraries in 1997.The issue carried six papers on digital libraryconcepts and technologies and interestingly all sixpapers were contributed by authors from outsideIndia (Rajashekar 1997a).Electronic libraries have been the precursor todigital libraries though the terminologies have been used interchangeably and the term ‘digital library’ has evolved to be the widely accepted ter-minology encompassing the concepts and servicesof electronic libraries as well. Electronic library ser-vices of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharag-pur include video library services, database ser-vices, SDI services, online journal access service andretrospective database search services. Future pro-grams which include plans for large-scale digitisa-tion have been discussed by Mohapatra (2007).An article that reafﬁrms the evolutionary po-sition of the electronic library as the predecessorof digital libraries by Deb and Kar (2005) describesthe setting up of the electronic library at The En-ergy and Resources Institute (TERI). The TERIelectronic library opened for its researchers in1999 and includes a number of services. The con-cepts of a physical electronic library and a virtualelectronic library are discussed including thevarious resources and beneﬁts of the TERI elec-tronic library.The phenomenon of information hidden in thetraditional library set-up being a barrier to com-munication, and the potential of digitization asmeans to overcome this phenomenon is discussed by Giri (2006).

Country initiatives

In recent years there have been a number of digi-tal library initiatives in India and there are sev-eral papers that have attempted to study theseinitiatives. Bhattacharya (2004) traced the develop-ment of digital libraries with respect to India andconcluded that India’s attempt towards digitallibrary development has been sporadic and partial.In the paper, digital library initiatives have beendivided into eleven categories that includes artand culture, academic institutions, national-levelinstitutions, R&D organizations, government,NGOs, ﬁnancial institutions, media, private, so-ciety and university levels. The problems and thepolicy of the Government of India towards digitallibrary development in India as well as the digitaldivide in general are also discussed.Similarly, Jain and Babbar (2006) have catego-rized the different Indian digital library initiativesviz., at the government level, at academic institu-tions and within society-level organizations. Fif-teen digital library initiatives that fall under thethree categories have been highlighted. Theauthors also afﬁrm that only sporadic and partialattempt have been made towards digital libraryinitiatives in India.

17Digital Libraries in India

India is rich in various kinds of traditionalknowledge that is documented in various formsand is available in museums, archives and somelibraries. With digital library technology and tools,it is possible not only to archive these for posterity but also to replicate and disseminate such in-formation with ease. Rao (2005) discusses twosuch digital library projects, viz., Digital Library ofIndian Heritage and Indian Art Preservation Re-search Project.One of the major digital library initiatives in re-cent times has been the Million Books to the WebProject initiated by Prof. Raj Reddy of CarnegieMellon University. It is a worldwide mission andIndia is a major contributor to this project withthe Indian effort being named Digital Library ofIndia (Balakrishnan 2005). Balakrishnan discussesthe technological challenges with regard to theIndian languages and future directions includingthe possibility of creating a 21

century equivalentof the public library and that PBS and All IndiaRadio might create Web contents.Krishnamurthy (2004) also gives an overviewof digital libraries describing the Digital LibraryInitiative – Phase I and Digital Library Initiative –Phase II projects. He also touches upon researchissues involved in digital libraries such as inter-operability, collection development and manage-ment, preservation, cataloguing and indexing andreference services.

Case Studies

The Central Food Technological Research Insti-tute’s (CFTRI) efforts to create a digital library oftheses and dissertations are discussed by Padma-vathi, Lal and Mahakuteshwar (2005). A casestudy outlining the practical issues and key stagesinvolved in creating a digital library of mathe-matics using DSpace has been reported by Krish-namurthy (2005a). Further, the importance of opensource software has been explained.A brief on the digital library initiatives at theIndian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore is dis-cussed by Vagiswari and Birdie (2003). It in-cludes the digitization of archival material andparticipation in the Million Books to the WebProject.Kalra (2001) mentions a few digital libraryinitiatives that began in the 1990s but discussesmostly Web-based searchable databases, bulletin board, listservs® and OPACS. Highlighting theimportance of ceramics for society, the need fordeveloping a digital library on ceramics has beendealt at length by Patra (2006). Brief mention isalso made on the actual implementation of thedigital library in ceramics.Efforts at The Energy and Resources Institute(TERI) to create an integrated digital library have been discussed by Deb (2006). The concept of thehybrid digital library and the steps involved inits creation are also discussed. The hybrid digitallibrary is a digital library that holds the metadatafor accessing resources available in cyberspace andin the organization’s library. Deb also discusses thephysical digital library for born-digital documentsin TERI and explains the TERI integrated digitallibrary that provides a single window to provideaccess to born-digital resources as well as digitizeddocuments.Vidyanidhi, the Indian Digital Library of Elec-tronic Theses initiative, is highlighted by Urs andRaghavan (2001) who mention that Vidyanidhi isa direct consequence of government policy initia-tives and is intended to demonstrate the utility ofdigital library technologies in maintaining andenhancing access to and visibility of Indian aca-demic research.A conceptual model of Networked Digital Li- braries (NDL) for IIMs (Indian Institutes of Man-agement) have been drawn up by Jose and Raina(2005) following successful NDL (National DigitalLibrary) programmes initiated in the U.S., like theNetworking Digital Library of Theses and Disserta-tions (NDLTD) and Networked Computer ScienceTechnical Reference Library (NCSTRL).Creation of a digital library using satellite tech-nology and the GSDL (Greenstone Digital Library)software is described by Malathy (2005). Organis-ing digital information in the corporate sectorusing the GSDL is discussed by Munnolli (2004).

E-government initiatives

Government-to-citizen programmes largely fallunder the e-governance initiatives undertaken byvarious countries and in the recent years there has been stress on e-governance in India. Sharma andYurcik (2001) have discussed the Gyandoot DigitalLibrary Intranet, highlighting the challenges andprospects of the rural digital library. Governmentdigital library initiatives for reparation of public