Virtual repository at your fingertips: National Digital Library
Tap into the National Digital Library for a great reading experience.
Imagine
having a collection of six million books at home. The National Digital Library
(NDL) is aiming at making this a reality. With the new NDL app for Android,
users can read over 7.2 million books in 70 different languages. The National
Digital Library of India, hosted by IIT Kharagpur and sponsored by the Ministry
of Human Resource Development, is a single window portal to integrate the
digital repositories of India. The subjects range from computer science,
philosophy, and religion to literature, agriculture and fine arts.
Humble
beginnings
“NDL
started as a pilot project in April 2015 by MHRD. From a humble beginning on a
PC to demonstrate the proof of concept, it is now a full blown project; making
educational content available to the entire nation at their fingertips. NDL is
“open” and “inclusive.” Anybody can register and start using NDL,” said Prof.
Partha Pratim Das, professor in-charge and overall coordinator of the project
at IIT Kharagpur.
Some
of the content available on the repository includes NCERT textbooks, textbooks
of 8 state education boards, JEE, GATE and UPSC question papers, papers/theses
from Indian Institute of Science, Indian Statistical Institute, IITs, IIMs,
IISERs. Publications from the laboratories of Council of Scientific &
Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
can also be accessed online.
“There
are over 2.5 lakh entries on cancer. The convenient filtering system allows you
to choose the subject area, language and file type. Though there are many
books, the number of research articles is limited — only open access journals
and research articles are available. It would be helpful if we can get access
to paid journals too,” says Alekhya T. Kilambi, Research Scholar at Tata
Memorial Centre, Mumbai.
Though
scholars are a bit disappointed, students seem to be on the optimistic side.
“Children these days don’t like going to the library. So we brought the library
to them. They can read over three lakh pieces under literature section. Kids
are more inclined towards audio-visuals for stimuli as opposed to the written
word. So we also have some of the best-loved tales and short stories in the
form of digital resources such as audio-books,” says a representative of IIT
Kharagpur.
“We
have also started a social media campaign called #NightTimeRead which is live
fiction at night,” she adds. The campaign was launched on June 3 on the NDL
India Facebook and Twitter pages. Each post carries a synopsis of a short-story
along with the link to the content.
“We
all love a good read before we go to sleep. #NightTimeRead is an endeavour to
bring a little bit of fiction and folklore back into the lives of our users
this summer vacation. It promises to present some bone-chilling, heart-pumping,
tear-jerking, laughter-loving indigenous and foreign literature just as the
stars come out! We are also hoping the short audio-book format will intrigue
more people to experience these incredible stories,” said an official from NDL
India.
The
app has a few bugs like unexpected crashing and inability to download PDFs. If
properly organised and updated frequently, NDL has immense potential to help
the student community and bring the reading culture back to the younger
generation.
Source | The Hindu | 24 July 2017
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior Manager @
Knowledge Repository
Khaitan
& Co
Upcoming Lecture | ACTREC - BOSLA Annual lecture series (125th birth anniversary of father of library
science, Padmashree Dr. S. R. Ranganathan) on Saturday, 12th August 2017 at Advanced Centre for Treatment,
Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. (Theme | 'MakerSpace')
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