This document summarizes digital library initiatives and development issues in India. It discusses objectives of digital libraries like enhancing collections, using standards, and maximizing access. It outlines workflows for content selection, publishing, and delivery. Key metadata standards and protocols used in India include Dublin Core and OAI-PMH. Popular open source digital library software in India includes Greenstone, DSpace, and EPrints. The document then summarizes several digital repositories, open courseware initiatives, open access journals, and metadata harvesting services in India. It concludes by noting both accomplishments and ongoing issues around infrastructure, skills, and copyright that impact digital library development in India.

1. Digital Libraries:
the process, initiatives and developmental issues in
India
By
Sudesh Kumar Sood
Chief Librarian,
H.P. Central State Library, Solan (H.P)
sood_sk14@yahoo.co.in

2. Features
• A digital library may allow
either online or offline access
to the elements it organizes
and houses.
• May include multimedia as
well as multilingual data.

3. Objectives and Workflow
• Enhance the digital collection in a substantial
way.
• Embrace popular digital standards , formats and
software platforms.
• Emphasis on maximize the efficiency and
effectiveness of the information access
• Standard workflow patterns are to be identified
for the system for:
‘content selection’, ‘content acquisition’, ‘
content publishing’, ‘content indexing and storage’,
and ‘content accessing and delivery’.
• The system should also concern about such
related issues,
– preservation, usage monitoring, access management,
interoperability, administration and management etc.

4. Meta-data Standards and
Protocols
• Metadata, or “data about data,” is a critical
element for searching information through a
database
• A major governing body of the Web has
developed de facto standards including RDF
• At present, digital library initiatives in India make
use of
– Dublin Core for web-based publications,
– Encoded Archival Description (EAD) for archiving and
Visual Resources Association (VRA) for visual data.
– Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
(OAI_PMH) to automatically extract metadata
information from digital libraries and enhance
interoperability between systems.

5. Selection of the Software
• It should be robust in technical architecture as
well as the content architecture.
• The system should address all major digital
library related issues such as ‘design criteria’,
‘collection building’, ‘content
organization’, ‘access’, ‘evaluation’, ‘policy
and legal issues’ including ‘intellectual
property rights’.
• The system should also provide a powerful
search engine and the interface should be easy
to navigate and there should be provision for
customization.

6. • There are many digital library soft wares
available, proprietary as well as open
source, and most of them conform to
international standards.
• VTLS and ACADO are the commercial
ones available and popular in the Indian
market.
• Some of the popular Open Source
Software for digital libraries, which are
in use internationally, are ‘DSpace’,
‘Dienst’, ‘Eprints’, ‘Fedora’,
‘Greenstone’ etc.

7. Some Initiatives of India
• Institutional Repositories
• Open Courseware Initiatives
• Open Access Journals
• Metadata Harvesting
Services
• and Others

8. Digital Repositories in India
• Institutional repository (IR) systems by libraries, using
• Greenstone
• Dspace
• EPrints
• Some open access repositories are specially created to
disseminate intellectual outputs of the country in the
form of electronic theses and dissertations
• Vidyanidhi
• ETD@IISc.
• Other national level open access repositories provide
all kinds of scholarly materials on particular discipline.
• The OpenMED@NIC
• Librarians' Digital Library

9. Some of such repositories are:
• Digital Repository of IIT Bomaby
• DRS@ino (National Institute of Oceanography)
• DSpace@NITR (National Institute of Technology,
Rourkela)
• DSpace@MDI (Indian Institute of Management
Kozhikode)
• DSpace at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune
• DSpace@INFLIBNET
• Digital Collections@INFLIBNET Centre
• ePrints@SVNIT (Sardar Vallabhbai National Institute of
Technology)
• eGyanKosh (IGNOU)
• ePrints@IIT Delhi

10. • ePrints@IISc
• ePrints@Catalysis (National Centre for Catalysis
Research)
• ePrings@SBTMKU (School of Biotechnology, Madurai
Kamraj University)
• Indian Institute of Astrophysics Repository
• National Aerospace Laboratories
• Kautilya Digital Repository of IGIDR (Indira Gandhi
Institute of Development Research, Mumbai)
• NISCAIR Online Periodicals Repository
• OpenMED@NIC (Medical)
• NISCAIR Online Periodicals Repository
• RRI Digital Repository (Raman Research Institute Digital
Repository)

11. Open Courseware Initiatives
• CEC Learning Object Repository
• www.cec-lor.edu.in
• eGyankosh A National Digital Repository
• www.egyankosh.ac.in
• Indo-German eGurukul on Digital Libraries
• http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/mmb/
• National Programme on Technology Enhanced
Learning (NPTEL)
• www.nptel.iitm.ac.in
• NCERT Online Textbooks
• www.ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Index.htm
• UNESCO-SALIS e-Learning Portal
• http://salisonline.org

12. Open Access Journals
• e-Journals @ INSA
• www.insa.ac.in
• Indian Academy of Sciences published Open
Access Journals
• www.ias.ac.in/pubs/journals/
• IndianJournals.Com hosted Open Access
Journals
• www.indianjournals.com
• Kamla-Raj Enterprises published Open Access
Journals
• www.krepublishers.com/KRENew- J/index.html
• MEDIND@NIC: Biomedical Journals from India
• http://medind.nic.in

13. Metadata Harvesting Services
• Cross Archive Search Service for Indian
Repositories (CASSIR)
• http://casin.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/oai/
• Open Index Initiative
• http://oii.igidr.ac.in
• Open J-Gate
• www.openj-gate.com
• Scientific Journal Publishing in India:
Indexing and Online Management (SJPI)
• http://sjpi.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/
• Search Digital Libraries (SDL)
• http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/sdl/

14. Other Digital Libraries
• Archives of Indian Labour: Integrated Labour History Research
Programme
• www.indialabourarchives.org
• Child Trafficking Digital Library
• www.ChildTrafficking.com
• CSIR Explorations
• http://csirexplorations.com/
• Cultural Heritage Digital Library in Hindi
• http://mobilelibrary.cdacnoida.in
• Digital e-Library (Dware Dware Gyan Sampadaa/Providing
Books at Your Doorsteps)
• www.new.dli.ernet.in
• Digital Library of India
• http://dli.iiit.ac.in
• India Education Digital Library
• www.edudl.gov.in

15. • Kalasampada: Digital Library Resources of
Indian Cultural Heritage (DL-RICH)
• www.ignca.nic.in/dlrich.html
• Muktabodha: Digital Library and Archiving
Project
• www.muktabodhalib.org/digital_library.htm
• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library
• www.tkdl.res.in
• Vidyanidhi www.vidyanidhi.org.in
• Vigyan Prasar Digital Library
• www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/digilib/

16. Digital library development
issues in India
• Lack of proper Information &
Communication Technology (ICT)
Infrastructure
• Lack of Proper Planning and Integration of
Information Resources
• Rigidity in the publishers’ policies and data
formats
• Lack of ICT Strategies and Policies
• Lack of Technical Skills
• Management Support
• Copyright / IPR Issues

17. Conclusion
• The effect of focused capacity building programmers in
the areas of digital preservation, digital libraries and
open access to literature is encouraging in a country like
India, where significant proliferation of open access and
digital library initiatives have been achieved in the last
decade, which has seen fantastic accomplishments and
the future presents exciting possibilities and challenges.
The key to commitment and development in this field lies
in the sensitization of stakeholders as which has been
done in India, in order to achieve that paradigm shift in
universal access to information, knowledge and heritage

18. Bibliography
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Cultural usability in digital libraries. Bulletin of the
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Library Philosophy and Practice. V5.N2. Spring 2003.
www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/jebaraj.pdf
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www.cdacindia.com/html/pdf/ramdasi.pdf
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