IGNOU chips in for govt project to make books, artefacts available online

Now, search the availability of any book, manuscript or journal which you thought is not available in your nearest library or a 3D image of any museum artefact with a click of a mouse.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is aiding an initiative of the Ministry of Culture under the National Mission of Libraries by way of creating a catalogue of libraries across India which apart from books includes artefacts and other resources from libraries, museums, archives, among others, as per an announcement on its website.

And all this would be done using an open source platform, Koha, making its access free of cost. The initiative, which would benefit researchers, scientists, artists, students, children, differently-abled persons, the general public and neo and non-literates, would entail an expenditure of Rs 400 crore.

“IGNOU will have to collect bibliographic records of other major libraries across the country, provide training and data migration from other library automation software among other works,” said Uma Kanjilal, a professor at IGNOU.

A five-day training on this began on the IGNOU campus here yesterday in which the varsity would provide hands-on training to participants on Koha open source application.

National Mission of Libraries (NML) envisages creation of a National Virtual Library database on digital information about India and on information generated in the country.

The scheme would develop six libraries under the Ministry of Culture, 35 state central libraries and 35 district libraries as model libraries, with particular emphasis on economically-backward districts.

IGNOU, along with IIT-Bombay and CDAC have been entrusted with the responsibility of developing the National Virtual Library of India (NVLI) under NML which will be hosting information of the entire Indian cultural heritage on the digital web world.