ARTICLE IN PRESS

The International Information & Library Review (2006) 38, 161–169

The International
Information &
Library Review

www.elsevier.com/locate/iilr

Digital libraries initiatives in India

P.K. Jaina,, Parveen Babbarb

a
Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi Enclave, Delhi 110007, India
b
Indira Gandhi National Open University, Delhi, India

Summary Digital libraries (DLs) have evolved, and developments in information

technology have changed the concept of the library from one of print and paper
media to digital media. The success of a DL depends upon the computers,
communication skills, and knowledge of library professionals in connection with
modern technology. In the present scenario, we stand at a transition from the
traditional library to a global DL. The technology-based idea is to provide universal
access to digital content available only in a DL environment.
Today the emergence of digital technology and computer networks has provided a
means whereby information can be stored, retrieved, disseminated and duplicated
in a fast and efficient manner. On a global level, DLs have made considerable
advances both in technology and its application. India still has far to go if the nation
is to benefit from this movement. Only sporadic and partial attempts have been
made towards DL initiatives in India.
The basic objective of DL initiatives in India has been to preserve the art, culture
and heritage of this country. All projects aimed at creating DLs concentrate only on
specialized collections. The DL initiative in India is still at a nascent or embryonic
stage. But with the initiative like DL policy, it can also be said that the nation is
serious about DL implementation.
& 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction curricula in the changing environment. For DLs,

The role of the librarian and the information officer
is changing in the digital library (DL) situation.
With the changing scenario each is required to
acquire new skills for developing and managing
the DLs. The departments of Library Sciences
and the library schools are re-designing their
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pkjain@iegindia.org (P.K. Jain), parveen-
babbar@ignou.ac.in (P. Babbar).
additional technology, education and training are
required.
In India there are a number of university and
institute libraries, which are in the process of
conversion into DLs. Library and information
centres in the present time are digitizing their
resources. The paper intends to propose various
aspects of evaluation of DLs initiatives in India.
The advantage of having a DL is now well under-
stood by librarians, technologists, management and
users.

1057-2317/$ - see front matter & 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.iilr.2006.06.003
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
162
DL initiatives in India
The situation in India regarding DLs is very peculiar.
Generally, the use of Information Technology (IT)
and Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) in libraries in India is concentrated in
universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs),
Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian
Institutes of Science (IIScs), research institutes
and some special libraries. Some government
agencies, as well as public-sector institutions, are
also engaged in digitization of libraries. But the
initiatives taken by the Government of India in this
direction indicate that the potential of ICTs for
developing DLs has not been fully realized. While
one government agency is providing support for one
particular aspect, the other is focusing elsewhere,
without any coordinated effort by a nodal agency.
The concept of DLs in the developed countries
started during the 1970s, but in India it began in the
mid-1990s with the advent of IT on a large scale and
the support extended by the central government.
The advent of the Internet acted as a catalyst for
DL initiatives. The basic objective of DL initiatives
in India has been to preserve the art, culture and
heritage of this country. All projects aimed at
creating DLs concentrate only on specialized
collections. The DL initiative in India is still at a
nascent or embryonic stage.
The concept was recognized in India during the
Fifteenth Annual Convention and Conference on
Digital Libraries, organized by the Society of
Information Science at Bangalore from 18 to 20
January 1996. A few libraries had made attempts in
this direction earlier.
Only sporadic and partial attempts have been
made towards DL initiatives. Simplistic approaches
have been taken in the libraries, such as getting a
few databases on CD-ROM, subscribing to a few
e-journals, scanning a few documents, or creating
Adobe Acrobat files and installing these on an
intranet. But this scenario is changing at a snail’s
pace, and it has to gain momentum to survive in the
competitive world.
DL initiatives in India were started basically for
preservation of the art, culture and heritage of the
country. The categorization of DL initiatives in India
may be listed as follows.
Initiatives at the government level
Both the Union Government and the state govern-
ments of India have taken considerable initiatives
towards the development of DLs. ‘‘Support of
Government of India towards DL initiatives-policy
P.K. Jain, P. Babbar
issues: The Long-Term National IT Policy’’ (National
Task Force on IT and Software Development, 2003)
shows us the commitment of the Government of
India to provide information to users in digital
form. The responsibility of envisioning, developing,
and sustaining functional hybrid and virtual library
and information systems and services rests on the
library and information profession.
DL of India
There is a mission to create a portal for the digital
library of India (DLI) piloted by the Office of the
Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of
India, Ministry of Communication and Information
Technology (MCIT) with IISc and Carnegie Mellon
University, USA, as partners.
The mission is to create a portal for the DLI which
will foster creativity and free access to all human
knowledge. As a first step in realizing this mission,
it is proposed to create the DL with a free-to-read,
searchable collection of one million books, pre-
dominantly in Indian languages, available to every-
one over the Internet. This portal will also become
an aggregator of all the knowledge and digital
contents created by other DL initiatives in India.
This portal would provide a gateway to Indian DLs in
science, arts, culture, music, movies, traditional
medicine, palm leaves and many more. The result
will be a unique resource accessible to anyone in
the world 24  7, without regard to socioeconomic
background or nationality.
One of the goals of the DLI is to provide support
for full text indexing and searching based on optical
character recognition (OCR) technologies, where
available. The availability of online search allows
users to locate relevant information quickly and
reliably thus enhancing students’ success in their
research endeavours. This 24  7 resource would
also provide an excellent test bed for language
processing research in areas such as machine
translation, OCR, summarization, speech and hand-
writing recognition, intelligent indexing, and in-
formation retrieval in Indian languages.
It is expected that the DLI will be mirrored at
several locations worldwide so as to protect the
integrity and availability of the data. The DLI will
also partner with other country specific DL initia-
tives as part of the Universal Library Project
(www.ulib.org) spearheaded by Prof. Raj Reddy
and Carnegie Mellon University.
The current status of scanning centres of DLI
shows that approx 24.521 million pages have been
scanned at various centres in India. It shows that
approximately 80,240 books have been scanned
(Table 1).
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Digital libraries initiatives in India 163

Table 1 Number of books and pages scanned, by  make theses available online (as per the restric-
language. tions desired by the doctoral students) and
help enhance the visibility of Indian doctoral
Figures by language research,
Language No of books No. of pages
 offer tools and resources to strengthen and
augment the research capacities of doctoral
English 49,674 17,456,701 students and universities,
Telugu 14,063 2,804,200  enhance the quality of doctoral research in India
Hindi 6318 1,458,386 by developing and using standard formats and
Urdu 2977 719,523 templates,
Tamil 1550 396,021  mould ‘best practices’ in scholarship and scho-
Sanskrit 1485 510,340 larly writing among students, and
Persian 1000 245,727  prepare the doctoral students in e-publishing,
Multi 699 198,158
e-scholarship and DLs by offering training pro-
Others 704 220,350
Arabic 617 198,552 grammes and online tutorials.
Kannada 586 140,585
Marathi 363 90,947 The Vidyanidhi DL is conceived as having two
German 121 46,803 layers—metadata database and full text of theses.
French 63 24,770 They are currently focusing on building both these
Oriya 5 6978 layers. Currently it has nearly 50,000 records in the
Bengali 4 713 metadata database and 300 full text theses. The
Spanish 4 17 Vidyanidhi metadata database is a truly multi-
Italian 3 1172 lingual database with records in English and Indian
Greek 1 539 languages as well. Vidyanidhi has implemented the
Gujarati 1 52
Unicode standard for Indian languages and scripts.
Irish 1 538
Russian 1 73
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is a
collaborative project between the National Insti-
Vidyanidhi tute of Science Communication and Information
Vidyanidhi began as a pilot project in the year 2000 Resources (NISCAIR), the Council of Scientific and
with support from the National Information System Industrial Research (CSIR) of the Ministry of Science
for Science and Technology (NISSAT) and the and Technology, and the Department of Ayurveda,
Government of India’s Department of Scientific Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeo-
and Industrial Research (DSIR). Vidyanidhi demon- pathy (AYUSH) of the Ministry of Health and Family
strated the feasibility of e-theses programmes in Welfare, which is being implemented at the
India. With support from the Ford Foundation and National Institute of Science Communication and
also from Microsoft India, Vidyanidhi is evolving as a Information Resources (NISCAIR). An inter-disciplin-
national initiative. ary team of traditional medicine (Ayurveda, Unani,
Vidyanidhi (meaning ‘Treasure of Knowledge’ in Siddha, Yoga) experts, patent examiners, IT ex-
Sanskrit) is India’s premier DL initiative to facilitate perts, scientists and technical officers are involved
the creation, archiving and accessing of doctoral in creation of TKDL for Indian systems of medicine.
theses. Vidyanidhi is an information infrastructure, The project TKDL involves documentation of the
a DL, a portal of resources, tools and facilities for knowledge available in public domain on traditional
doctoral research in India. Vidyanidhi is envisioned knowledge from the existing literature related to
to evolve as a national repository and a consortium Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha, in digitized format in
for e-theses through participation and partnership five international languages which are English,
with universities, academic institutions and other German, French, Japanese and Spanish. Traditional
stake holders. Vidyanidhi enhances access to Indian Knowledge Resource Classification (TKRC), an in-
theses and enlarges the reach and audience for novative structured classification system for the
Indian doctoral research works. purpose of systematic arrangement, dissemination
The mission of Vidyanidhi project is to and retrieval has been evolved for about 10,500
subgroups against one group in International Patent
 develop a repository for Indian doctoral theses, Classification (IPC), e.g. AK61K35/78 related to
 digitize, archive and improve access to doctoral medicinal plants. Present status of TKDL is re-
theses in India, flected in Table 2.
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164
Table 2 Present status of TKDL.
Discipline Target (no. of Achieved
formulations)
Ayurveda 59,000 59,000
Unani 77,000 51,000
Siddha 10,000 — The network covers 5 of 13 blocks and 3 of 7 tehsils
Yoga 1500 — in the district. Soochanalayas are located at block
Total 147,500 110,000
At present, TKDL contains 11.0 million pages of
information in five international languages.
Gyandoot
Gyandoot (meaning ‘‘messenger of knowledge’’) is
a new intranet-based DL in the Dhar district of the
state of Madhya Pradesh connecting rural public
cybercafes. A corresponding website is an exten-
sion of Gyandoot intranet providing giving global
access via a portal. Gyandoot was conceived in a
discussion with the Secretary, Information Technol-
ogy, Government of Madhya Pradesh on November
11, 1999. The pilot project was launched on
November 29, 1999 and it was officially commis-
sioned on January 1, 2000. Thus, from concept to
commissioning, the entire Gyandoot DL project was
executed in the short space of 51 days for a cost of
$57,000 USD.
Gyandoot is a unique form of government to
citizen (G2C) DL activity to address the hardship
imposed by transaction costs associated with
government services. Located in central India,
agriculture and industry are the twin mainstays of
business. Close to four thousand million rupees
(90 M USD) worth of agricultural commodities are
transacted annually, principally soya, cotton, and
wheat. Indore is the largest automobile centre in
Asia. The local elected governing council (District
Panchayat, Dhar) is enabling over half a million
rural citizens affordable access to various govern-
ment and market-related needs through state-of-
the-art IT kiosks.
Samadhan Kendras
In order to turn food producers/consumers into
information producers/consumers, the Indian gov-
ernment is making efforts for the establishment of
‘‘Samadhan Kendras’’ (SKF Rural Support Centres)
and ‘‘Soochana Gumtis’’ (SG—Information Kiosks)
in the list of industries eligible for loans under
various programs. DLs are being used for the public
grievances redressal systems of the state govern-
ments through SG facilitation counters in govern-
ment offices.
P.K. Jain, P. Babbar
Samadhan Kendras/Soochanalaya Gumtis: In
Madhya Pradesh, a regional network connects 21
rural cybercafes called Soochanalayas. Each Soo-
chanalaya provides services for about 10–15 village
(Gram) Panchayat (a cluster of 20–30 villages) with
an aggregate population of 20,000–30,000 people.
headquarters, haat (main) bazaars, villages and bus
depot centres. The Soochanalayas are located on
the roadside of the central villages where people
normally travel. They together serve a population
of over half a million.
A local matriculate operator called a ‘‘soochak’’
operates the cybercafes. The soochak is not a
government employee but rather a local volunteer.
The soochak takes out a bank loan to buy the
computer, modem and printer while the Panchayat
covers the cost of the phone line. Villagers pay a
nominal amount for each service, usually less than
US 50 cents for any service and there is a set price
list. The soochak keeps 90% of the fees with a 10%
commission passed back to the Panchayat for new
service development and increasing system capa-
city. With the soochak approach, cybercafes are
providing self-employment through entrepreneur-
ship to local rural youth.
Indian National Digital Library in Engineering
Science and Technology (INDEST) consortium
The Ministry of Human Resource Development
(MHRD) has set-up the INDEST consortium on the
recommendation made by the expert group ap-
pointed by the ministry under the chairmanship of
the Prof. N. Balakrishnan. The Ministry provides
funds required for subscription to electronic re-
sources for 38 institutions including IISc, IITs, NITs,
IIMs and a few other centrally funded government
institutions through the consortium headquarters
set-up at the IIT Delhi. Also, 44 government or
government-aided engineering colleges and tech-
nical departments in universities have joined the
consortium with financial support from the All-India
Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Moreover,
the INDEST Consortium, as an open-ended proposi-
tion, welcomes other institutions to join it on their
own for sharing benefits it offers in terms of highly
discounted rates of subscription and better terms
of agreement with the publishers. All electronic
resources being subscribed are available from the
publishers’ websites. The consortium has an active
mailing list and a website hosted at the IIT, Delhi.
The INDEST consortium is the most ambitious
initiative taken so far in the country. The benefit of
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Digital libraries initiatives in India
consortium-based subscriptions to electronic re-
sources is not confined to 38 major technological
institutions in the country but is also extended to
all AICTE-accredited and UGC-affiliated institu-
tions. Ninety-nine engineering colleges and institu-
tions have already joined the consortium on their
own.
INDEST consortium presently includes the Asso-
ciation for Computing Machinery (ACM) DL, Amer-
ican Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) journals,
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
journals, Academy of Management Review (AMR),
Capitaline, Euromonitor, Global Market Information
Database (GMID), Institute for Educational Leader-
ship (IEL) Online, Indian Standards, Nature, Pro-
Quest Science, Science Direct, Springer Link and
bibliographic databases Compendex, Inspec, and
MathSciNet.
CSIR consortium
NISCAIR is the nodal organization for developing a
consortium for the CSIR laboratories for accessing
e-journals. The activities shall range from creation
to monitoring of the access facilities of scientific
periodicals published by leading international
institutions. To start with, an agreement has been
signed with Elsevier Science for a period of four
years for 1200 journals. Under this scheme, CSIR
scientists shall be able to access these journals and
download material for their use. Such access to
worldwide journal resources playing a very vital
role and strengthening research and development
in CSIR laboratories, thus leading to knowledge
generation useful for socio-economic development
of the country. The objectives are:
 to strengthen the pooling, sharing and electronic
access to the CSIR library resources,
 to provide access to world S&T literature to CSIR
labs, and
 to nucleate the culture of electronic access
resulting into evolution of DLs.
To date, CSIR has entered into agreement with 11
publishers to access about 3316 international
journals across the labs.
Initiatives at national level institutions
Parliament library
A DL has been set up in the computer centre to
cater to the needs of members of Parliament and
officers and staff of Lok Sabha Secretariat. A large
number of index-based databases of information
generated within the Parliament which cater to the
165
instant reference needs of members, officers and
research and reference personnel were initially
developed by the computer centre. The data stored
and available now in PARLIS databases for online
retrieval relates to:
 parliamentary questions (full texts of questions
and answers since February 2000; indexes from
1985 to 2000 are also available);
 parliamentary proceedings other than questions
(full text of floor versions since the winter
session of 1993; indexes from 1985 to 1993 are
also available);
 government and private members’ bills from
1985 onwards (only indexes);
 directions, decisions and observations from the
chair, from 1952 onwards;
 president’s rule in the states and union terri-
tories, from 1951;
 members of council of ministers from 1947
onwards;
 obituary references made in the houses since
provisional parliament;
 library management functions such as acquisi-
tion, processing and issue and return of books
have also been computerized using the software
package named ‘‘LIBSYS.’’ A Web-based library
catalogue can also be accessed through Internet;
 documentation service (from 1989 onwards)
(important articles published in books, reports,
periodicals and newspapers are indexed
and annotated and can be accessed through
Internet).
Initiatives at academic institutions of
national importance
IIT, New Delhi
The commitment to DL initiatives and the emphasis
upon Web-based digitized collections at the Central
Library, IIT Delhi commenced in 1998 with the
installation of a fibre optics-based campus LAN
connected to a 2 Mbps VSNL radio link enabling
faster Internet access for the academic community
of the Institute. The availability of the high-speed
Internet connection has led to the launching of a
number of sponsored and un-sponsored projects for
developing network-based digitized collections at
the Central Library, IIT, Delhi.
IITs are fortunate enough to receive generous
grants and projects from government bodies such
as AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education)
and the Ministry of Human Resources Development
and Management (MHRD) to develop their DLs.
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A number of online coursewares have been devel-
oped. Digitization of old volumes of journals at IIT
Delhi is just one example of projects supported by
the government.
Indian Institute of Science
A project proposal for NSF support under the Indo-
US Science and Technology Collaboration initiative
has been made by IISc. The IISc, Bangalore would
act as a nodal agency to coordinate amongst
various academic institutions and governmental
agencies from the Indian side. The Carnegie Mellon
University would play the same role from the US
side.
The aim of the project is to digitize around a
million books in the next three years. This joint
initiative is planned to synergistically capitalize on
the availability of the state-of-the-art of hardware
and software in the US for digitizing, storing and
accessing of information and the quality personnel
available in India. This would act as a forerunner
for many such initiatives with other countries,
particularly in China and Korea, and would culmi-
nate in the grandiose vision of digitizing all the
formal knowledge and make available in a location
and time independent way for the benefit of the
mankind. In order to take a million books to the
Web, it is estimated that around 1000 man-years
would be needed. If the project is carried out in a
developed country like the United States of
America, it would cost at least around 40 M $
besides the cost of the hardware, space and energy.
National Institute of Technology, Calicut
Nalanda, the DL initiated in 1999 at the National
Institute of Technology, Calicut, is one of the
largest DLs in the country. Nalanda serves members
of the campus in meeting their academic and
research needs by providing timely and up-to-date
information with value added services in all the
areas of science, engineering, and technology.
Apart from the DL reading room, members can
access the Nalanda from the entire campus.
NISCAIR (formerly INSDOC)
NISCAIR is slowly shifting to electronic libraries that
will eventually lead to the establishment of DLs.
With decreasing shelf space and ever growing
collections in the libraries, NISCAIR has been
advocating the conversion of automated libraries
into electronic libraries.
NISCAIR has access to international databases.
Information is obtained through online searching
from over 1500 international databases. Skilled
personnel at NISCAIR perform searches for research
scientists and the corporate sector who use these
P.K. Jain, P. Babbar
databases for the latest R&D, commercial and
market information. National Science Library of
NISCAIR has an Electronic Library Division with a
rich collection of more than 5000 foreign journals,
conference proceedings, etc. and a large number of
databases on CD-ROMs. NISCAIR is the nodal agency
for developing a consortium for CSIR laboratories
for accessing e-journals. The activity shall range
from creation to monitoring of the access facility of
scientific periodicals published by leading interna-
tional institutions.
National Tuberculosis Institute, Bangalore
On 28th October, 2003, the National Tuberculosis
Institute – Bangalore, under the initative and with
the support of the Health InterNetwork Project,
India – TB, launched a DL. This DL was comprised of
CDs on tuberculosis (TB), made available as ready
reference tools for programme workers at the
District and Primary Health Center Levels. The
CDs on TB have relevant Revised National Tubercu-
losis Control Programme (RNTCP) documents and
scientific literature on programme, treatment,
drug resistance and control aspects of TB.
Digitization of art and culture
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
(C-DAC)—DL of art masterpieces
This is the first initiative of its kind in Asia and it
will digitize 200 rare paintings of Rabindranath
Tagore and Amrita Shergill from National Gallery of
Modern Arts (NGMA). A DL will be created using the
tool Digital Library Application Suite (DLAS), devel-
oped by the DL Group, to make the art accessible to
a global audience via the World Wide Web. The
infrastructure to host this DL would be located at
the C-DAC Bangalore.
C-DAC and Hewlett Packard launched the joint
initiative ‘‘When Art Meets Technology’’ for digital
preservation, restoration and dissemination of art
from the NGMA at Bangalore on February 04, 2003.
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts
(IGNCA)—Kalasampada
IGNCA has taken up the Kalasampada Digital
Library—Resource for Indian Cultural Heritage
(DL-RICH) project which is sponsored by MCIT.
This project aims to use multimedia computer
technology to develop a software package that
integrates a variety of cultural information and
helps the users to interact and explore the subjects
available in image, audio, text, graphics, animation
and video on a computer in a non-linear mode, by a
click of mouse.
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Digital libraries initiatives in India
Kalasampada, a unique project of its kind, will
facilitate the students, scholars, artists and the
research and scientific community to access and
view the materials. These materials include several
hundred thousand manuscripts, over a hundred
thousand slides, thousands of rare books, photo-
graphs, audio and video along with highly re-
searched publications of IGNCA, all accessible
from a single window.
The system aims to be a digital repository of
content and information with a user-friendly inter-
face. The knowledge base created will help the
scholars to explore and visualize the information
stored in multiple layers. This will provide a new
dimension in the study of the Indian art and
culture, in an integrated way, while giving due
importance to each medium.
Initiatives within society level organizations
Mobile DL (Dware Dware Gyan Sampada)
This is a product from C-DAC Noida. The mission of
the project is an Internet-enabled mobile DL
brought to common citizens with the purpose of
spreading literacy. C-DAC Noida (Department of IT,
MCIT) contributes to bringing digitized books to the
doorsteps of common citizens. It makes use of a
mobile van with a satellite connection for con-
nectivity to the Internet. The van is fitted with a
printer, scorer, cutter and binding machine for
providing bound books to the end user. Different
places, such as schools in villages and other remote
areas, will be covered under this programme to
promote literacy and demonstrate the use of
technology for the masses. The schedule of visits
of the mobile DL is made available on their website.
Books formatted for book printing may be selected
from the website by language, author and title.
There are about 350 books in Hindi and English
which will be available for download through this
website. The site is bilingual (English and Hindi).
Indian DL policy
The National Task Force on IT and Software
Development (2003) has given some valuable
recommendations for development of DLs in the
country. These recommendations have been cov-
ered in the report under the IT Action Plan (Part III)
for the content creation and content industry. The
salient features of the recommendations are listed
below:
(1) A pilot project on DL development, based on
indigenous software, will be initiated. The
167
project will be time-bound and implemented at
one of the suitable existing libraries to serve as
a model. The software so developed can be
distributed to other organizations to accelerate
the development of DLs in the country.
(2) India is known for its rich and diverse cultural
heritage. It also possesses a vast wealth of
traditional knowledge. These are mostly in
Indian languages and should be promoted and
preserved for posterity. The government will
therefore take initiatives through appropriate
projects to create electronic images of infor-
mation on Indian arts and culture for wider
dissemination and research.
(3) It will be mandatory for all the universities or
deemed universities in the country to host
every dissertation or thesis submitted for
research degrees on a designated website.
(4) National, regional and other public libraries will
be required to develop databases of their
holdings that will be hosted on a designated
website for free access to users.
(5) An effective copyright protection system is a
prerequisite for development of creative works
in electronic media. Therefore, the Indian
copyright law should be strengthened in this
direction. Further, there is a need for global
harmonization of copyright laws. The conclu-
sion of the trade-related aspects of intellectual
property rights (TRIPSs) agreement and the two
World Intellectual Proprietary Organization
(WIPO) treaties will be adopted for such
harmonization.
From the points listed above it can be said that
the nation is serious about DL implementation.
Problems of DLs in India
There are many problems associated with DL
development in India.
The lack of interest on the part of parent
institutions and the absence of action plans or
priorities are major hindrances. Though the com-
puter and communication infrastructure is improv-
ing considerably in India, its availability for
information-based activity is not appreciated to a
noticeable extent by the higher authorities in
organizations. Even in places where the infrastruc-
ture is available, there is an acute shortage of
competent personnel to take up the task of
digitizing local content and creating digital infor-
mation repositories. The students, faculty, curricu-
lum and training methodology at the disposal of
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
168
India’s library schools must be visibly improved to
meet this challenge.
Coupled with this, steps should be taken to re-
train the existing staff. The increasing interest in
library website development and the migration of
information sources and services to the Web should
be treated as stepping-stones in DL development.
Libraries should judiciously utilize enhanced infor-
mation access options, such as Web access to
subscribed journals. The digital resources thus
accessed will contribute much to research activ-
ities in India by reducing some of the existing
barriers to information communication, such as
time and space. The growth of the software
industry in India, as a result of a large increase in
computer penetration, a sudden increase in skilled
personnel and a sizeable improvement in commu-
nication infrastructure, should be channelled by
concerned and authorized information profes-
sionals to create and maintain digital information
facilities to usher in the new information age.
One of the major constraints in digitization is the
digital divide. Access to DLs is dependent upon
hardware and software requirements. Therefore,
the information is only available to people from
affluent communities who meet the necessary
requirements. As a result, information and knowl-
edge sharing are not provided fairly, and all the
people may not have similar qualities of informa-
tion access.
Some hard realities about India
According to a 2002 World Bank Report (Petkoski,
2002, p. 26):
 A quarter of the world’s poverty is in India,
 3 computers / 1000 people; and
 Nearly 250 million children in the country do not
have access to computers.
So, inadequacy of information for the rural
masses is one major hindrance in the path of DL.
There are 600,000 villages in India. 240,000 of them
do not have proper roads, 180,000 do not have
primary schools, 450,000 have inadequate drinking
water, and 140,000 have no proper dwelling
facility. 70% of India’s population of one thousand
million lives in villages. Lack of health education,
poor communication infrastructure and unemploy-
ment are problems plaguing Indian villages. The
digital divide is nowhere more prominent than in
India. The average literacy rate is 62.38%. A total of
26.1% of the urban and 10.8% of the rural
P.K. Jain, P. Babbar
population have completed a minimum of 10 years
of schooling and are capable of utilizing ICTs,
including DLs. The Internet is accessed by 0.37%
of users in India, most of whom are from the
professional and corporate sector or schools and
colleges in urban areas.
Bridging the poverty gap and decreasing the
digital divide requires all-round development. Any
developmental activity requires information and
adequate information for planners and is simply not
available for individuals. Villagers need information
for agricultural production and marketing their
produce. Traditional library service needs to be
supplemented by electronic resources making use
of IT, computers and communication. Most of the
villagers still depend upon voice telephony as an
important means of information transfer.
Conclusion
The time has come for a systematic approach in
establishing a DL system in India. There are already
many discrete projects on the digitization and
distribution of electronic data underway in India, as
has been described in this paper.
The vision of Indian DLs should be to create an
Indian information infrastructure in which the
resources of universities, governments, businesses
and industry are linked to form a cohesive national
digitized information service. The service will
provide seamless access to sources across different
systems using a variety of formats, and thereby
achieve cost-effective development of a more
competitive Indian research enterprise.
DLs initiatives in India are still at a nascent stage
of development. With the advent of the Internet
and World Wide Web, DL development in India
encounters new challenges. DL initiatives in India
began with the goal of preservation of art, culture
and heritage of the country. The digital environ-
ment in the Indian context is a new concept that
became a reality through projects funded by the
government. The long-term national IT policy
shows us the commitment of the government of
India to providing information to users in digital
form, and that the responsibility of envisioning,
developing and sustaining functional hybrid and
virtual library and information systems and services
rests on the library and information professions.
The successful implementation of the INDEST
Consortia in IITs, RECs and IIMs shows the progress
of Indian DL initiatives. The CSIR e-journals
consortia also show the benefits of DL initiatives.
From the examples of DLs initiatives in India, it can
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
Digital libraries initiatives in India
be said that there are a few projects, such as TKDL,
that can develop into examples for others to follow.
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