Paperless libraries

                                               

While electronic access has begun to redefine the roles of publishers, librarians and booksellers, it seems unlikely that e-libraries will make good old books redundant, says Akhila Seetharaman

A character from an imaginary future world in American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" remarks, "It's not books you need, it's some of the things that were once in books..."

Today, it's possible to get all the things you may ever need, sorted and edited, without physically opening a single book. Libraries without books, or e-libraries, make this possible.

Like with all things `e', the concept of the e-library is also hazy in the minds of most people. An e-library or an electronic library can either be on the Internet or simply in electronic format and shared in a limited way.

The first step to an e-library is digitising information. Several reputed university libraries in the country, including university libraries in Chennai have significant portions of their resources in electronic format.

This, coupled with subscription databases and online journals, give users wide access.

"While we subscribe to 130-140 journals in print, we receive as many as 2000-3000 journals online," said M.K. Jagadish, Director of American Information Resource Centre.

Not only does the electronic format widen access many times over, it also enables multiple users to access the same text at the same time and protects the valuable content from being lost due to accidents like fires and attacks.

Electronic access alters the way we look at information and knowledge altogether. In the beginning, libraries were sanctums of knowledge and librarians were the watchdogs.

"There was a time when librarians thought that a good library is a library full of books," said M.S. Ananth, Director of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. "But if all the books are in, it means that nobody is reading," he pointed out, speaking to a gathering of librarians at a convention of the Society for Information Science. Even today, many old-style librarians guard their books both from and for the reading community.

With the sum total knowledge doubling every year, digitisation is the most practical way to save information in terms of both accessibility and storage, said Dr. Ananth.

After digitisation, putting electronic versions of books and journals on networks like the Internet, is the logical next step. This enables knowledge sharing, not just with those in the immediate environment, but also with people with common interests in other areas.

Apart from digitising existing information from books and journals, e-libraries offer potential for new forms of content with increased levels of interactivity.

E-libraries provide opportunities for educational materials to be reached to remote areas and provide access to a range of information materials to all students irrespective of their location.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development has initiated a few programmes to network information resources in universities in the country.

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) aims at developing web and multimedia learning content for undergraduate science and engineering students across the country.

INDEST, a consortium of 38 institutions, offers online access (by subscription) to vast electronic resources on science, engineering and technology.

Several non-governmental organisations are also experimenting with electronic educational resources. Vidyanidhi (vidyanidhi.org.in), is one digital library experiment that has catalogued and archived over 50,000 Indian doctoral theses.

With fonts being rapidly developed in Indian languages, literature in various languages, including Tamil, is being organised and archived in electronic format.

Electronic access has begun to redefine the roles of publishers, librarians and booksellers. Copyright issues lurk round every corner of the e-library. But it seems unlikely that paperless libraries will make good old books redundant. Many librarians feel that a mix of print and electronic resources is best.

"Although people talk of e-books, there's nothing like the comfort of reading a book in print," said Mr. Jagadish. "Books will never go, that is for sure."