Canada varsity keen on library partnership with IITs

KOLKATA, APRIL 18: 

A Canadian university is moving towards library and research partnerships with two Indian Institutes of Technology.

The University of Alberta (UA) is expecting to share digitised materials in diverse areas such as medicine, engineering and literature with IIT, Ropar, and IIT Roorkee, a university spokesperson told Business Line.

Ms Margaret Law, Director of International Relations with the university libraries, was in India recently.

According to her, the institutions may work out specific ways in which they could share rare copies of digitised materials. “This will be with librarians from the IITs and their Canadian counterparts,” Ms Law said.

She felt the university library needed to support those beyond western perspectives on medicine, engineering, or any other fields.

In her efforts to enhance research capacities at the University of Alberta, she felt the need to build an infrastructure base by helping develop expertise in librarianship and build library collections worldwide.

For example, IIT Ropar offers a course on Canadian literature but have a very limited collection. “We're going to help them build a good Canadian literature collection”, Ms Law said.

IIT, Ropar, in turn will help the Canadian university build a library of Indian traditional medicine. “We have a number of researchers in Canada, who are interested in global health issues and we have a special collection that's specifically focused on indigenous traditions and health practices”.

jayanta_mallick@ thehindu.co.in

Source: The Hindu Business Line  http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/article3328744.ece