ie News maa) Appointment and Transfer 3 April, Mr. Khaga Raj Mr. Gajendra Kumar Thakur as Science Honorable Prime Minister Mr. KP. Sharma Oli on 16 March, 2018 inducted Mr. Giriraj Mani Pokbrel Science and Technology % Likewise, Government ) of Nepal on : Secretary Education, and Technology. FamilySearch Content Strategy Manager Mr. David Ouimette and Content Strategist Ms. Dani Edgar visited NNE for research and leaming about the NNL collections genealogy, biography and research, Mr. Upendra Prasad Mainali, Chief of NNL, welcomed the guests, handed over souverior & NNL newsletter. Me. mainali highlighted collection and search of appropriate land and building for NNL after devastating Gorkha earthquake through organizing information sharing programme on 26 March, Raj Pantha, Library officer of NNL hosted the program and Ms. Anju Shakya, Library officer of NNL shared NNL's brief history, its prevailing situation and services Genealogical Society of Utah, It started microfilming historical records in 1938, In an as Minister for Education, 2018 transferred Nepal National Library (NNL) with FamilySearch specially holdings of local history, family history, the on going process and progress in managing NNL 2018, Mr. Mainali addressed the participants. Mr. Basanta FamilySearch Intemational was found in 1894 as initial microfilming from Nepal National Library they neon microfilmed the records from 21 TuaL different countries ent eee like United States England, Denmark, Basie Library Wales, Netherland, Norway, Italy eS Switzerland TULSAA Sweden, Finland East. Germany, 1011 0 Se April, 2018 Ireland, Scotland, West Germany, Iceland, Mexico, Canada, Belgium, France, Australia and New Zealand. Mr Ouimette presented an history of FamilySearch International, the works they have been doing and how they are helping people scarch their family with family tree, their forefathers and ancestor preserving entire records that are available in written form with the help of microfilm in the past and digitization of records at present. He showed how FamilyScarch has helped libraries across country preserve the deteriorating and decaying collections with the help of digitization in reference to Philippine libraries after the hurricane. After microfilming the records all around the world and microfilming billions of records they stored the records in a mountain, they carved a vault in the Granite Mountain as a very safe place to keep microfilm copies of books and manuscripts. In 1990's those materials were converted to digital images and they started publishing those records and digital images online. They published 1.5 billion images of records and indexed the names and the relationships of people that were in the genealogy records, Paris register, census records, Chinese Japu records and other documents more around the world including hundreds and thousands of book that were digitized, They have records from over 100 countries as its free for everybody, its free for archive, free for library and free for the public because the FamilySearch wants to encourage people to discover their families, ancestor and to do their family tree. ‘The FamilySearch looks around the world, visits the National archive, they look around the records whether they are books or manuscripts, and they find those records that are in greatest need of preservation, especially records that have to do with families. They make agreements with the archives to digitally preserve the records. They have about 300 cameras around the word right now and ev.2 INN. News records, Until 2018, FamilySearch has 6 billion searchable names, 1.5 billion digital images, 400,000 digitized books and online records for more than 100 countries. ‘When Mr, Ouimette was asked if the FamilySearch has any technology to convert microfilms to modem technology and. if they are still using those microfilms Mr Ouimette said in Granite Mountain vault they have 2-3 million microfilms and they have been digitizing all of those and publishing, them online. They have got really good technology 10 digitize film which reads the whole role of microfilm on its one picture and cuts into frames and then saves in a hard drive of digital images. They have been converting, microfilms into digital images because very few companies actually sale microfilm anymore and very few companies ceven make the machines to read them. So they are trying to migrate to newer technology, he added. He also mentioned, in the English language books they are also doing Optical character Recognition (OCR) searching. In the context of libraries facing lack of resources, infrastructures and support from government he said it’s same with almost every country. Working with FamilySearch helps preserve valuable records digitally, records may be restored if disaster strikes and citizens will be better able to gain access to records. FamilySearch offers best technology, software and best practices. ‘Nepal National Library Day Observed Nepal National Library celebrated its 61st anniversary amidst a decent function of sanitation and cleanliness program in library premises in active participation of all the employees of the library on 3 January 2018, ‘Nepalese Association of School Lirarians (NASL) NASL organized book handover program in support of the Asia Foundation and Tan Young in Jaimini Municipality, Baglung in presence of resource persons of the Resource centres, social workers, members of Jaimini municipality, education section personnel, Principals of 19 High Schools, teachers and librarians, and Principles of basic schools. Mr. Indra Raj paudel, Chief of Jaimini Municipality was chief guest. Ms. Sharada © Siwakoti was chair person of the program. Mr. Khem, Acharya the education officer of Jaimani Municipality was master of ceremony. Similarly, NASL organized book handover program in Kathmandu at Bishal Milan Kendra’s meeting hall on 27 November, 2018 Ms. Sulochana Sigdel, Vice President of Federation of Democratic NGO Nepal was Chief Guest of the program. Mr. Ramesh Khatiwada, President of Children Homes’ Federation Nepal, Mr. Ian Young from United Kingdom, Ms. Samira Shrestha, Program Officer of The Asia Foundation; Ms. Kumari Kamal Rai, President of District Committee of NASL and Mr. Bijay Sharma, President of ‘Tribhuvan University Library Science Students’ Alumni Association were guests in the program, Mr. Khatiwada and Mr Sigdel thanked NASL for their good initiations. Ms. Shrestha committed to continue the partnership and Ms Siwakoti, expressed her gladness. NASL has already distributed books and other materials for ‘more than 500 schools. From this year NASL has decided to honor librarians for outstanding achievement and accomplishments with ‘lan ‘Young Librarian of the Year’ award. MPP Organized Cataloguers’ Forum Madan Puraskar Pustakalya (MPP) organized Cataloguers’ forum on 12 February, 2018. The cataloguers and library professionals from various libraries in Kathmandu Valley gathered together to discuss on the needs of cataloguers. ‘The main agendas of the program were to: share information, fon the needs of cataloguers in the Kathmandu Valley, provide background on cataloguing and standards in the United States, discuss options for presenting metadata via the internet, review cataloguing and cataloguing tools at MPP, consider possible future meetings of the Cataloguers’ Forum, ‘The program was facilitated by Mr. Prabeen Poudel, Director of MPP. Mr. James Nye, Bibliographer of Southern Asia University of Chicago presented a brief overview of the works done by the South Asia Union Catalog and the collaborations that have been taking place among different institutions in South Asia. Similarly, Mr. Pawan ‘Thapa, Bibliographer of MPP and Mr. Dibyendra Hyoju, Email: nnl@nn.wiink.com.np, Web: http:.www.nnl gov.npLL NN News! 3 System Librarian of MPP presented the brief overview on cataloging at MPP as well as how a collaboration between cataloguers and IT professionals can result in meaningful outputs, Mr, Shamik Misra, Executive Director of MPP and, Mr, Poudel moderated the open discussions. Tho issues raised by the forum included; need for another meet, uniformity in cataloguing standards, dedicated workshop on MARC 21, subject authority lists in Nepali and other national languages, pros and cons of using ALA- LC scheme of transliteration and its value in accurate transliteration via software to other scripts, sharing of MARC 21 records between different institutions using, 739.50. protocol, knowledge on efficient migration of records between different cataloguing standards. The forum demonstrated Koha as one option of presenting the metadata via internet, AGORA Workshop in Nepal The Intemational Centre for Integrated Mountain Development ({CIMOD), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held a two-day national workshop on Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) on 29-30 March 2018 at ICIMOD, Lalitpur, Nepal. The workshop aimed to raise awareness on key trends in scientific publishing on agriculture, environmental science, and forestry and enhance access and use of resources available on the AGORA platform. The AGORA program, set up by FAO with major publishers, gives developing countries access to an outstanding digital library collection that includes information on food, agriculture, environmental science, and related social sciences, AGORA connects more than 3,400 institutions in some 115 countries to nearly 6,000 key journals and 22,000 books. It was designed to aid scholarship of agriculture and life sciences in the developing world and is one of the five programs that make up Research4Lite. The key person was Imma Subirats senior knowledge and information management officer atthe Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). She supports organizations in the creation, management, preservation and dissemination of information and data in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Her work includes developing capacities in country members to enable information management specialists and data managers to manage and exchange knowledge and data in agriculture. Above sixty library and information science professionals from five university central libraries, university central departments, as well as government and non-government academic and research organizations across Nepal attended the workshop, Participants learned to use AGORA resources, using different search, browse, and sort options and the Research4Life Google Scholar link. The workshop also introduced International System for Agricultural Science and Technology (AGRIS), a global public domain database with more than eight million structured bibliographical records on agricultural science and technology. An AGORA in Nepal DGroup (nepal-agora@dgroups.org) ‘mailing list was created to connect participants and share news and updates about AGORA. Others may also join through the following link: https://dgroups.org/fao/agora/ join, ‘Tribhuvan University Central Library (TUCL) 1, Indian Ambassador visits TUCL: His Excelleney Mr Manjeev Singh Puri, Indian Ambassador to Nepal visited TUCL on 23 March, 2018. He was accompanied by senior officials of Indian Embassy. Tribhuvan University Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Tirtha Khaniya and other TU officials were also present during the Ambassador's visit. H.E, Ambassador inspected the sections of the library with keen interest. He was briefed about the library by the Chief of TUCL Mr. LP. Adhikari His Excellency ambassador signed in the library's, visitor’s book with some words of encouragement. H.E. Ambassador then visited the Zakir Hussain Rose Garden that is situated just infront of the library. On the way to T.U. Vice Chancellor's office, H.E. Ambassador Majeev Singh Puri also visited Gandhi Bhawan, next to the TUCL 2, TUCL Day Observed: Tribhuvan University Central Library celebrated its 58% annual day on 19 December, 2017 amidst a special function in the seminar hall of the library. The director of the Intemational Relations Centre Prof. Dr, Bhupa Email: nnl@nn.wiink.com.np, Web: http:www.nnl gov.np