| 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."
