Library on a Click: Rajasthan Patrika

Narendra Modi inaugurates e-library for lawyers

Press Trust of India / Ahmedabad September 16, 2012, 22:45

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated an e-library for lawyers which will make accessible various judgements of High Courts and the Supreme Court.

Inaugurating the e-library at a function organised by Bar Council of Gujarat (BCG) and the state government, Modi said the e-library was a major weapon to attain qualitative change in grievance redressal system and a powerful force of democracy.

Chairman of BCG Dilip Patel said the e-library inaugurated today was the first of its kind in the country which has made more than 7 lakh judgements from Supreme Court and various High Courts accessible through specially designed software.

The state government had provided Rs 2.22 crore for the logistics needed for the project, which includes PCs, printers, power back-ups installed in all offices of taluka level bar associations to access judgements and various law books, he said.

read more news at: http://www.business-standard.com/generalnews/news/modi-inaugurates-e-library-for-lawyers/57268/

Andhra Pradesh CM's unkept promises regarding libraries

HYDERABAD: Grandly announcing that he wanted to dispel the impression among people of the Old City that they were in any way less than those from other parts of town, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy went on a foundation stone laying spree in June last year. Calling himself a 'Hyderabadi' he laid foundation stones for at least four projects, all of which have failed to take off.

The construction of an e-library in Barkas at an estimated cost of Rs 50 lakh during the Rachabanda programme is one such project which failed to fructify. GHMC officials said the existing structure which houses the library is in a deplorable condition and needs to be razed to make way for a new building which would house the conventional library and the e-library. But the AP Granthalaya Samastha (APGS) which manages the existing library is opposing this proposal tooth and nail.

Sources from the GHMC and APGS said that the contention of the latter is that the land was registered in the name of the library and therefore, the GHMC cannot take up any construction on the land. It was reported in these columns in April this year that it was decided that APGS would take up construction and management of the library. However, as the dispute between the two bodies remained unresolved, GHMC decided to take up the construction on a separate land and is now eyeing other land parcels in the area for the e-library. Ayesha Rubina, GHMC co-option member, said, "All attempts to reach an amicable solution with the APGS have failed. Though a formal proposal is yet to be made, we have identified around 350 square yards of land near the community hall in Barkas." However, sources noted that with local politicians and other departments unofficially vying for possession of the new land parcel, alienation was a tough task.

The National Academy of Construction's (NAC) Advanced Skills Training Institute in Naseeb Nagar too was on the cards but incessant delays have left the project in limbo with not a single brick being laid. Training is being conducted in Owaisi School of Excellence in Jamal Colony. NAC officials said that more than two months have passed since files were handed over to the R&B department.

Kondal Rao, assistant director, NAC said, "All plans, drawings and technical sanctions are with R&B department. We are waiting for their response."

In need of respite from traffic woes due to haphazard parking of vehicles on roads, the residents of Khilwat and officials of Chowmahalla Palace had breathed a sigh of relief when the construction of a multi-level parking complex was announced. More than 15 months later, the situation is the same. Officials from the GHMC have been claiming for the past three months that soil testing for the project has been done 'only fifteen days ago'.

While an impressive sum of Rs 4.5 crore was announced for the renovation of the Government Nizamia Tibbi College, walls and domes are still cracking or collapsing frequently. Officials from the unani college said that poor response to tenders was causing the delay. "It took seven years for promotions to be granted. But the building cannot wait that long.

Everyday chips from the ceiling fall off and cases of wall collapse are not infrequent. The authorities must restore the building soon or else the lives of patients and staff are at risk," an official requesting anonymity said.

Read More News at :http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/CMs-unkept-promises/articleshow/16303640.cms

E-books, e-library - for your reading pleasure

E-books, e-library - for your reading pleasure (Thinkstock photos/Getty Images)

An online library that also offers a pick-up and drop facility for books, getting to browse through various language newspapers at one site, or mastering the intricacies of math and science at the click of a mouse - welcome to the exciting world of e-books that beckons at the Delhi Book Fair. 

The Sep 1-9 Delhi Book Fair is focussing this year on e-books and e-publishing, and visitors at the fair can now purchase books online. 

The online library hookedonbook.com offersreaders thousands of titles to choose from and also provides pickup and drop of the books. 

Another site, readwhere.com, allows readers to browse through their choice of newspapers,comics and magazines and one can also purchase digitized books online. 

Both these e-sites are another innovative venture - meritnation.com - that provides online teaching material to students from Classes 1-12. The online tutorial has simply written texts, videos and cartoons to make the chapters easy, as well as weekly tests and a forum for asking questions. 

Vikram Khosla, the owner of hookedonbook.com, said he has 40,000 titles in his collection. 

"Subscribers can browse through the collection and list their 10 preferred titles. We will get their top favourite book delivered at their doorstep," Khosla told us. 

Once the person has finished reading, a call or a mail to the site will get a man to pick up the book. "While coming to pick up the book our man will bring along the next book in the subscribers' list," added Khosla. 

How will they ensure books remain in good condition? 

"Our books will be checked and the subscriber will be asked to sign on a slip of paper before the book is given to him." 

The rates begin from a starter plan of Rs.200 a month, for two books per month, and goes up to Rs.1,000 per month for unlimited number of books to be rented in a month. 

Khosla said he hit upon the idea when his daughters, who used to frequent libraries in the US, "started buying books after coming to India and realized there are very few libraries here". 

Those living outside Delhi can also subscribe. Their books will be couriered by Fedex, he added. 

Khosla is also planning to set up leisure reading rooms in south Delhi's Saket area soon, equipped "with bean bags, soft music, and light coffee - where people, including kids, can spend hours enjoying the reading experience". 

The online tutorials site, meritnation.com, is a venture by naukri. 

"We provide all study material online, including through visuals and diagrams," Priti Vajpayee, an official of the site, told us. 

Students can also post their queries online and an expert answers their query. 

"We also host live tests so that students are well prepared," said Vajpayee, adding the site gets "7,000 sign-ins a day". 

The e-tutorials cost Rs.2,200 for a year for two subjects, while a package of all the subjects costs Rs.4,500 a year. Tutorials for attempting the IIT-JEE engineering exams cost Rs.14,000 a year. 

Another interesting site - readwhere.com - offers readers a whole array of vernacular language newspapers, magazines and comics. 

It also allows booksellers to go for e-publishing of their books and has an online bookstore from which readers can order books online. 

"Ours is a free site where readers can access newspapers and magazines," said Arun Nair, an official for the managers of the site. 

"Our focus is getting various language newspapers. We sell e-books too," Nair told us. 

He said the site had developed a software that would prevent copying of paid content. "An e-book can be accessed by the buyer but not downloaded," said Nair. 

The buyer can save the e-book in an app memory, which could be accessed without any internet even while travelling.

Read More News at:  Times of India

The bookless library – Is that the future of libraries?

Whether the advent of eBooks heralds the end of print books or not, it certainly seems that it will lead to the demise of libraries as we know them. The bookless library is increasing a reality, staring in places meant to be the repository of knowledge, university libraries, and gaining ground outside academic grounds.

The New York Public Library is implementing its plan to move many of its books away from its main branch into offsite storage with 24-hour advance request required. Yet it is not the first library to do so. Opening the move was Kansas State University’s engineering school, which went bookless 12 years ago. The University of Texas at San Antonio ditched print for e-books and e-journals in 2010. Stanford University’s engineering school pruned 85 percent of its books last year. Drexel University opened a new library just last month with hardly a single print book – just rows and rows of computers. And Cornell recently announced a similar initiative.

From academic libraries, the trend is now spreading to public libraries. Before New York,  in order to successfully abide a budget crunch, the Balboa Branch library in Newport Beach, California, is implementing a plan to strip its original library of most of if not all its 35,000 books and a few librarians as well. The 50-year-old library will become a de facto community center — a place where citizens can gather, chat without fear of being shushed by a stern librarian, and surf the web. Yet, patrons really wanting a book can still get one. All they have to do is march up to a voice-activated electronic kiosk; speak with a librarian at one of the city’s three other branches; order it and wait by the library’s traditional fireplace for it to be dropped off at a locker on site, though it might be wiser to go home  and come back the next day.

According to a Broward County (FL.) library employee, the future of library holding physical books seems gloomy. Commenting on a post about bookless libraries, he points at the main reasons virtual libraries will increasingly replace print books libraries

“1 – Our budgets are not enough to purchase both dead tree books and eBooks. We choose to increase the number of eBook titles available to customers (as well as other digital resources) and those dollars come from the physical book/item collection. This includes fewer CDs (Freegal replaces) and potentially DVDs soon.

2 – Staffing budgets are down everywhere. In Broward County Library our virtual reference and digital resources are staffed by two people. Just to process new physical materials it takes four people. It is not hard to see where the trend is heading.

Will there be physical books in libraries? Yes for the foreseeable future. But they will be more for older or poorer customers who do not have access any other way to old materials. New materials will not be available in the end.

Right now we do more than 60% of all circulation is Audio Visual materials (DVD, CD, etc) and customers using the physical building more for the computer access or bringing their own laptops in to access WiFi etc.

Less than 60% of all customers walking into the building actually check something out, and as above less than 40% of that is a physical book. “

And since money is still what rules the world, whether we like it of not, bookless libraries are what the future holds for the majority of us who are not scholars interested in checking watermarks and other specialized particularities of print books.

Read More News at:  http://www.epublishabook.com/2012/08/31/the-bookless-library-is-that-the-future-of-libraries/#axzz25OdEHGTq

e-library on law inaugurated in Ahmedabad

AHMEDABAD: An electronic law library named after justice V B Raju was inaugurated at the metropolitan court in the city.

The Late Justice Shree V B Raju e-library was inaugurated by Justice Anant Dave, Gujarat high court judge, and principal session judge S H Vora.

The e-library has four computers and two printers and the access would be totally free. The library, according to S V Raju - senior lawyer and son of Late Justice Shree V B Raju - will have the latest judgments of the high court and the Supreme Court. The library will also have the central and state laws.

"A person coming for research would have to pay for the printouts only," said Raju.

Ahmedabad rural district and session judge J N Patel was also present on the occasion. Inaugurating the library, Justice Dave asked bar members and advocates to use the e-library facility optimally.

More News at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/e-library-on-law-inaugurated/articleshow/15593506.cms

Importance of e-journals stressed: The Hindu

Change in the field of library and information science has been enormous

The e-journals resource available at several research organisations or online at several educational institutions should be made use of effectively to help improve the research activity in the country, opined a Defence Research Development Organisation scientist.

At the Andhra Loyola College at its Fr. Gordon Library organised a lecture on `e-journal and its usage’ and the keynote address delivered by DRDO Scientist T. Ashok Babu kept the students captivated. The library organised the programme in collaboration with ALC Department of Physics and in his lecture the resource person, Mr. Ashok Babu highlighted the importance of e-journals in libraries across the globe and its special importance in the DRDO. At the laboratories for scientific work, various journals and conference papers of various scientific institutes like “NASA, ISRO” are available for users and any one can make use of the available e-content from various sources, he said.

The students from physics background can better understand this and make use of them for their future studies and research, he observed. College Principal Father GAP Kshore gave welcome address and described the importance of e-content in the present education system and highlighted some user issues with regard to books and journals in the college library.

He also said that students of all subjects must convert themselves to the changing environment and benefit from the technology advancements. The librarian G. A. Prasad Rao spoke about the changes that were taking place in the information and communication technologies (ICT) and he asked all the students to make use of all the advancements in e-content development and delivery. The change in the field of library and information science was enormous, he added. Department of Physics head A. V. Ravikumar, proposed vote of thanks and Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centres meeting of south India was also organised at Andhra Loyola College.

Delegates from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in addition to Andhra Pradesh participated.

More News at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vijayawada/article3784600.ece

E-Books Go on Holiday

Source: Hindustan Times (Life Style), 14th August 2012, Page No. 5

Karnataka Assembly secretariat now has e-library

The Karnataka Legislative Assembly secretariat has set up an e-library, with a collection of more than 3 lakh titles, for the benefit of legislators and research students. The library has collection of assembly proceedings, records pertaining to governments several decades back, and thousands of other books.

Inaugurating the library on Wednesday, speaker KG Bopaiah advised legislators to make better use of the library and come prepared to participate in assembly debates. Research students too can avail of the facilities of the library, he added.

The library division of the the Karnataka Legislative Assembly secretariat has made available all the proceedings of the house to the visitors. The library has more than 49,000 honorary copies, 8,841 reports, 19,600 proceedings of both the houses of state 

legislature and 1.30 lakh books and periodicals. The library has also collection of 10,000 volumes of vernacular literature. The state had recently celebrated the 60th year of the legislative assembly. The first session of the assembly was held in 1952.

Chief minister Jagadish Shettar on Wednesday inaugurated the renovated library, located in the ground floor of Vidhana Soudha. 

The library department of the secretariat will establish a separate division on Gandhian literature.

More News at : DNA India

Libraries and e-books:Literary labours lent -The uncertain economics of lending virtual books

I hear Muggles make books disapparate

LIKE a tired marriage, the relationship between libraries and publishers has long been reassuringly dull. E-books, however, are causing heartache. Libraries know they need digital wares if they are to remain relevant, but many publishers are too wary of piracy and lost sales to co-operate. Among the big six, only Random House and HarperCollins license e-books with most libraries. The others have either denied requests or are reluctantly experimenting. In August, for example, Penguin will start a pilot with public libraries in New York.

Publishers are wise to be nervous. Owners of e-readers are exactly the customers they need: book-lovers with money (neither the devices nor broadband connections come cheap). If these wonderful people switch to borrowing e-books instead of buying them, what then?

Unlike printed books, which must be checked out and returned to a physical library miles from where you live, book files can be downloaded at home. Digital library catalogues are often browsed at night, from a comfy sofa. The files disappear from the device when they are due (which means no late fees, nor angst about lost or damaged tomes).

Awkwardly for publishers, buying an e-book costs more than renting one but offers little extra value. You cannot resell it, lend it to a friend or burn it to stay warm. Owning a book is useful if you want to savour it repeatedly, but who reads “Fifty Shades of Grey” twice?

E-lending is not simple, however. There are lots of different and often incompatible e-book formats, devices and licences. Most libraries use a company called OverDrive, a global distributor that secures rights from publishers and provides e-books and audio files in every format. Some 35m titles were checked out through OverDrive in 2011, and the company now sends useful data on borrowing behaviour to participating publishers. Yet publishers and libraries are worried by OverDrive’s market dominance, as the company can increasingly dictate fees and conditions.

Publishers were miffed when OverDrive teamed up with Amazon, the world’s biggest online bookseller, last year. Owners of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader who want to borrow e-books from libraries are now redirected to Amazon’s website, where they must use their Amazon account to secure a loan. Amazon then follows up with library patrons directly, letting them know they can “Buy this book” when the loan falls due.

This arrangement nudged Penguin to end its deal with OverDrive earlier this year. The publisher’s new pilot involves 3M, a rival distributor that does not yet support the Kindle. “Ultimately Amazon wants to control the library business,” says Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant.

Library users—nearly 60% of Americans aged 16 and older, according to Pew, an opinion researcher—are a perfect market for Amazon. It woos them by making loans on the Kindle uniquely easy. Late last year Amazon also unveiled its Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which lets its best customers (called “Amazon Prime” members) borrow free one of thousands of popular books each month.

Library boosters argue that book borrowers are also book buyers, and that libraries are vital spaces for readers to discover new work. Many were cheered by a recent Pew survey, which found that more than half of Americans with library cards say they prefer to buy their e-books. But the report also noted that few people know that e-books are available at most libraries, and that popular titles often involve long waiting lists, which may be what inspires people to buy.

So publishers keep tweaking their lending arrangements in search of the right balance. Random House raised its licensing prices earlier this year, and HarperCollins limits libraries to lending its titles 26 times. Penguin plans to keep new releases out of libraries for at least six months, and each book will expire after a year. Hachette is engaged in some secret experiments, and the others are watching with bated breath. In Britain the government will soon announce a review of the matter. The story of the library e-book is a nail-biter.

More News at: http://www.economist.com/node/21559654

Online lending library gives reading a new lease of life

• By Gautam Sunder
Coimbatore

School students enjoy a story-telling session.

But with school students increasingly being hooked to their laptops and iPads, the worry is that many in the current generation might never fully appreciate the joy of books.For years, libraries have been thronged by children searching for their favourite authors or preparing to spend a lazy weekend curled up with a novel in hand.

But the same technology that snatches away the joy of holding a book also seems to find a way to keep the current crop hooked to it. Along with all other goods and services that have gone from brick and mortar to their online avatar, so have libraries.

Online lending libraries have become a popular way of piquing interest among today's children to give book reading a shot, much to the delight of parents and teachers.

One such initiative that has seen success is iloveread.in (skip the dots and pronounce it)

“ILR was founded by Amrutash Mishra and Sahil Gore in Chennai, and launched in Coimbatore early this year.

People have the liberty to browse through a wide collection of books belonging to every genre possible and get them delivered with just a click.

We have tie-ups with several schools in Tamil Nadu where we have begun the Book Lovers Program for Schools (BLPS). A series of activities at BLPS equips teachers to handle storytelling sessions for the children.

The stories complement the curriculum and are for students upto class 8. It's a great platform for them to be exposed to the wonderful world of stories. Add-on libraries are also implemented in schools”, says R. Anitha, who runs ILR in Coimbatore.

“We conducted an interactive event recently in Coimbatore, and it was a great success. Ms. Shilpa Krishnan,a veteran storyteller from Chennai and a part of the BLPS program, enthralled kids in a fun session. She also spoke to parents about the importance of art in a child's life”, she adds.

Anitha signs off by saying, “In order to ensure we keep up with emerging trends in reading, we add atleast 400-odd books to our library each month.

People who aren't net-savvy can register and avail the service by phone as well. We have plans to infuse corporates with the love of reading soon too!”

Maya Gowri, a working young mother from Coimbatore comments, “My youngest son Vishwa is in class 4, and as much as I'd like to take him to the library every week, we parents sometimes do not find the time.

An online library is a great opportunity for us to inculcate the habit of reading in him, and through the convenience of a laptop.

Also, it's very useful for working professionals like me to come home and catch up on some much-needed lost reading from over the years!”

More News at : http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/education/online-lending-library-gives-reading-new-lease-life-698

E-book library borrowing takes slow pace: Study

New York: E-book readers have been relatively slow to borrow digital works from the library, frustrated by a limited selection and by not even knowing whether their local branch offers e-releases, according to a new study.

The Pew Research Center published a survey Friday that reports around 12 percent of e-book users 16 years and older downloaded a text from the library over the past year. Earlier in 2012, Pew issued a study showing that around 20 percent of adults had read an e-book recently.

Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group and other major publishers have limited e-book offerings to libraries or refused to make any available, citing concerns that the ease of free downloads would hurt sales. Lack of awareness may be another factor. Around 60 percent of those 16 and older couldn't say whether their libraries had e-books.

Pew's Internet & American Life Project study, conducted with nearly 3,000 respondents between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, 2011, suggests that library patrons trying to borrow digital texts have been deterred by the selection and by not having the right e-book device. Just over half of respondents said their library did not have the book they were looking for and nearly 20 percent found that the device they owned could not receive a given title.

Nearly half of those who have not borrowed an e-book said they would be "very" or "somewhat" interested if they were lent an e-reading device with a book already downloaded.

Officials from the American Library Association have been meeting with publishers in an effort to work out a system that would satisfy both sides. On Thursday, Penguin Group (USA) announced a pilot program with the New York and Brooklyn library systems that will make e-books available six months after they first go on sale. Penguin had suspended its e-book program with libraries last year.

"I applaud Penguin's decision today to re-start e-book sales to libraries so that we may again meet our mutual goals of connecting authors and readers," library association president Molly Raphael said in a statement.

One statistic reported by Pew should please publishers and librarians: Those who borrow e-books from libraries tend to read more - 29 books a year - than readers who don't use the library (23 books). But library card holders also are more likely to borrow, as opposed to buy, a book compared to those without library cards.

Overall, around half of those surveyed said they had bought their most recent book. Around 15 per cent said they had borrowed a copy from the library.

Fore More Info, Please Click on: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ebook-library-borrowing-takes-slow-pace-study/267599-11.html

Goa University library now just a click away

PANAJI: The Goa University on Wednesday launched the website and Online Open Access Catalogue (OPAC) for its library, which will enable students and the public at large to look up titles of their interest from the over 1.40 lakh books and 400 journals at the click of a mouse. Users can now reserve and renew books using OPAC. Another 250 e-books are also available on the website and users will be able to download the ones of their interest onto their personal computer for future reference.

The website also enables university faculty to recommend books to readers on the website, which was inaugurated by chief minister, Manohar Parrikar, on Wednesday. Users can access all doctoral thesis submitted to prominent varsities in the country. Goa University will upload PhD thesis submitted to it on the website soon too.

"The website http:library.unigoa.ac.in uses an open source software KOHA. Users can login, search for titles using keywords and also find related titles in the search. Books can also be previewed by the readers. If users want to generally browse through the books available in thelibrary they can do it using the OPAC http:libcat.unigoa.ac.in on the website. The OPAC will soon be made available on mobile devices too," said university librarian Dr Gopakumar V, who has designed the website.

"Colleges affiliated to the Goa University are encouraged to create their own library websites. We plan to link these websites to ours so that a user can at a time search a book's availability in the libraries across Goa's institutions," Dr Gopakumar said.

The GU library's books cover a wide range of disciplines such as the humanities, social science and pure and applied sciences like microbiology, marine science, environmental science, computer science, geology and management. The library has a special collection on Latin America. It also has a large collection of titles in Konkani and the foreign language section includes titles in Portuguese, French and Spanish.

Users can either access these e-books from the comfort of their homes or through the 35 computers in the Goa University's Cyber Centre. The university campus has Wi-Fi connectivity which will enable students to access the website anywhere in the university campus on their laptops, if they do not want to be restricted within the computer laboratory of the university library to use the e-books.

The website is linked to full text databases like that of the American Chemical Society, Oxford University Press, Royal Society of Chemistry among others. One can also use the website to go to open access databases such as DOAJ, African Journals Online and Free Medical Journals.

Different language dictionaries, encyclopedias and formats for academic writing too are available on the website.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Goa-University-library-now-just-a-click-away/articleshow/13680515.cms

E-library to give students access to medical journals

NAGPUR: The libraries of government-run medical and dental colleges in the state will soon have access to some of the most prestigious medical journals of the world. Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) has taken the initiative to enhance medical education in these institutes and give impetus to research. The step also aims meeting the needs of the electronic age.

Librarian Seema Vyas of city's Government Medical College and Hospital has been chosen as the coordinator for the project named e-library consortium. Seven of the most reputed medical journals of the world, including British Medical Journal and online research database ProQuest, have already agreed to be a part of the consortium. This consortium will give students access to the best electronic resources. DMER has invested 1.25 crore to purchase the rights for use of these websites.

"Along with postgraduate students from the 14 medical and three dental colleges of the state, students from seven nursing colleges and two physiotherapy colleges would also benefit," said DMER director Dr Pravin Shingare. Librarians from all colleges have been trained through workshops, and all colleges have been given their own user IDs and password to access them.

"This will be of great help to around 14,000 postgraduate students in writing their dissertations and completing other projects," he added.

"If we were to buy hard copies of these journals for all colleges, it would have cost the state a huge amount. The number of copies would also have been too less to help all the students equally. These sites, however, can be accessed via laptops, phones or tablets anywhere in the campus," explained Seema Vyas.

With this, Maharashtra would become one of the few states where such a service is available to students. DMER officials feel that it would go a long way in helping doctors, medical teachers and students to get a wider perspective for their research.

"Doctors grappling with a particularly difficult disease can always browse through the journals about research done on the subject earlier. Those engaged in research can also go through what has already been worked on, making sharing of resources among peers from different colleges easier," added Vyas. She said there are plans to make e-books of courses available through the colleges by next year as well.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/E-library-to-give-students-access-to-medical-journals/articleshow/13074674.cms

Library Solutions: Kwench your book thirst at work!

Kwench Library Solutions ties up with clients to offer library solutions for employees with its collection of 50,000 books, besides magazines, journals and movies.


Sunder Nookala wanted to be an engineer but his father couldn't afford it. So he settled for chartered accountancy. Today, Kwench Library Solutions, the company he set up in April 2008 with his IIM-A friends Prashant John, Krishnan Madhabushi and Mitesh Damania, has 300 corporate clients, 85 employees and a turnover target of Rs.500 crore by 2018. Kwench was born out of their collective desire to address the lack of proper library facilities at workplaces.

It ties up with clients to offer library solutions for employees with its collection of 50,000 books, besides magazines, journals and movies. Books are delivered at the employee's desk within 24 hours. The company turned cash positive in June 2010 and has stayed so since.

Giant Leap
Kwench started with 13 clients in 2008 and now has 300 clients spread over seven cities.

Steal Deal
In November 2011, Kwench introduced Myperks.in, a purchase programme that offers everything from 30 categories, including books,magazines, travel packages, baby care and electronics, at discounted rates.

Second Opinion
"The services are innovative and user-friendly.Our employees are happy to avail of these at the workplace."
Binoj Vasu, Chief Learning Officer, YES Bank
Source: http://news.in.msn.com/exclusives/it/article.aspx?cp-documentid=250007133

Barkas to go tech-savvy, works for e-library to start soon (Hyderabad)

HYDERABAD: Winds of change are being felt in several Old City areas and Barkas is no exception. Though development had taken a backseat in Barkas for decades, things are all set to change. A swanky e-library is on the cards in this neighbourhood where more children, both boys and girls, are now going to schools and colleges than in the past.

Locals, the Arab-Indian populace of Barkas, share that they are indeed witnessing the change taking place. "We don't have the statistics. But we can tell you that now we have engineers and doctors and other professionals from this locality," Khalid bin Abdullah, a middle-aged businessman, said.

It was in 2011 that the residents of Barkas voiced their demand for a library. A survey by local leaders in collaboration with civil society organizations of 2000 households conducted in the area shed light on the demands of the residents. Among those was a demand for a new library with facilities for the tech-savvy youngsters of the area. When chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy visited Barkas last year during the Rachabanda, foundation stone for the e-library was laid. But the proposal has taken a year to finally translate into work.

Ayesha Rubina, GHMC co-option member associated with ward development in Barkas, said that work on the library would be starting soon. "Earlier it was not clear if GHMC officials or the officials of the Directorate of Public Libraries would take up the work. That has now been resolved. The officials of the libraries department are set to take up construction and management of the library at an estimated cost of Rs 50 lakh. Work is likely to begin in two weeks," she said. It would take about a year for the new library to start functioning, she added.

The new library will come up in the vicinity of the Barkas football ground where an old library exists. For decades now, the residents of Barkas, Chandrayangutta and surrounding areas have had to contend with the existing library which is in a crumbling state with the books in dire need of restoration.

Rubina said that the new library is expected to start operations with 15 computers and access to online library database.

"We have few tentative plans as to how the e-library would function under the aegis of the public libraries officials but the details will be worked out after the infrastructure is in place. More books will be procured and restoration of old books will also be considered," she said.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Barkas-to-go-tech-savvy-works-for-e-library-to-start-soon/articleshow/12873862.cms

Oxford University, Vatican libraries to digitize works

The Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) said on Thursday they intended to digitize 1.5 million pages of ancient texts and make them freely available online. The libraries said the digitized collections will centre on three subject areas: Greek manuscripts, 15th-century printed books and Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books.The areas have been chosen for the strength of the collections in both libraries and their importance for scholarship in their respective fields.

With approximately two-thirds of the material coming from the BAV and the remainder from the Bodleian, the digitization effort will also benefit scholars by uniting virtually materials that have been dispersed between the collections for centuries. "Transforming these ancient texts and images into digital form helps transcend the limitations of time and space which have in the past restricted access to knowledge," Bodley's librarian Sarah Thomas said.

"Scholars will be able to interrogate these documents in fresh approaches as a result of their online availability." The initiative has been made possible by a 2 million pound ($3.17 million) award from the Polonsky Foundation.

"The service to humanity which the Vatican Library has accomplished over almost six centuries, by preserving its cultural treasures and making them available to readers, finds here a new avenue which confirms and amplifies its universal vocation through the use of new tools, thanks to the generosity of the Polonsky Foundation and to the sharing of expertise with the Bodleian Libraries," Holy See Librarian Cardinal Raffaele Farina said.

Bureau Report, zeenews, India

Source: http://zeenews.india.com Thursday, April 12, 2012, 09:31

Future Libraries and 17 Forms of Information Replacing Books

Question: As physical books go away, and computers and smart devices take their place, at what point does a library stop being a library, and start becoming something else?
Somewhere in the middle of this question lies the nagging fear and anxiety that we see brimming to the top among library insiders.
People who think libraries are going away simply because books are going digital are missing the true tectonic shifts taking place in the world of information.
Libraries are not about books. In fact, they were never about books.
Libraries exist to give us access to information. Until recently, books were one of the more efficient forms of transferring information from one person to another. Today there are 17 basic forms of information that are taking the place of books, and in the future there will be many more…

Gas Station Maps
As a young child, I was enamored with the free maps I could pick up at gas stations. Over time I had collected maps for nearly every state and some of the Canadian Provinces.
Along with the early days of the automobile and a generally confusing road system came the need for maps. Oil companies quickly realized that people who knew where they were going often traveled more, and consequently bought more gasoline.
Over time, anyone driving a car soon came to expect free maps whenever they stopped for gas, and companies like Rand McNally, H.M. Gousha, and General Drafting turned out millions to meet demand.
In the early 1970s, when I was first learning the freedom of owning a car, I couldn’t imagine a time when these maps would not be an integral part of my life.
Today, as GPS and smartphones give us turn-by-turn instructions on where to go, printed road maps exist as little more than collectibles for people wishing to preserve their memories of a fading era.
Are printed books likely to go through a similar dwindling of popularity?

Our Relationship with Information is Changing
As the form and delivery system for accessing information changes, our relationship with information also begins to morph.
If we treat this like other types relationships, we can begin to see where we’ve come from and where we’re going.
Gone are the days when we were simply “flirting” with our data, occasionally glancing at it, hoping it would pay attention to us as well.
In school we had more of a “dating” relationship, lugging books around, hoping they would impart their knowledge even though the parts that got read were few and far between. Much like dating a popular person, we became known by the books under our arms.
Once we started working, we became “married” to a relatively small universe of information that surrounded our job, company, and industry. People who became immersed in their particular universe became recognized as experts and quickly rose to the top.
Today we are beginning to have “affairs” with other exotic forms of information such as social networks and video chatting. All of these new forms of information seem much more alive and vibrant than the book world we had been married to for the past century.
Alone, on some dusty shelf, lie the books we had once been married to. On some level, many of us feel like we were cheating by abandoning our past, never getting closure for a divorce that left us with mixed loyalties haunting us on both a conscious and subconscious level.
If you think this is a crazy analogy, many will argue that its not. If anything, information is the heart and soul of our emotional self. Even though we may not feel it touching us like a finger pressing on our arm, a great piece of literature has a way of caressing our mind, adding fire to our inner rage, sending chills down the length of our spine, and giving us a euphoric high as we join our hero to reach a climactic conclusion.
Books of the past remain the physical manifestation of this kind of experience, and without their presence, a part of us feels lost.

Replacing Books
The transition to other forms of information has been happening for decades. Once we are able to get past the emotion connection we have to physical books, we begin to see how the information world is splintering off into dozens of different categories.
Here is a list of 17 primary categories of information that people turn to on a daily basis. While they are not direct replacements for physical books, they all have a way of eroding our reliance on them. There may be more that I’ve missed, but as you think through the following media channels, you’ll begin to understand how libraries of the future will need to function:

1. Games – 135 million Americans play video games an hour or more each month. In the U.S. 190 million households will use a next-generation video game console in 2012, of which 148 million will be connected to the Internet. The average gamer is 35 years old and they have been playing games on average for 13 years.
2. Digital Books – In January, USA Today reported a post-holiday e-book “surge,” with 32 of the top 50 titles on its most recent list selling more copies in digital format than in print. Self-published e-books now represent 20-27% of digital book sales.
3. Audio Books - Audiobooks are the fastest growing sector of the publishing industry. There is currently a shortage of audiobooks worldwide as publishers race to meet demand. Only 0.75% (not even 1%!) of Amazon’s book catalog has so far been converted to audio. Last year more than $1 billion worth of audiobooks were sold in the U.S. alone. Over 5,000 public libraries now offer free downloadable audio books.
4. Newspapers – Online readership of newspapers continues to grow, attracting more than 113 million readers in January 2012. Industry advertising revenues, however, continue to drop and are now at the same level as they were in 1950, when adjusted for inflation.
5. Magazines – The U.S. magazine industry is comprised of 5,146 businesses publishing a total of 38,000 titles. Time spent reading newspapers or magazines combined is roughly 3.9 hours per week. Nearly half of all magazine consumption takes place with the TV on. The magazine industry is declined 3.5% last year.
6. Music – According to Billboard’s “2011 Music Industry Report,” consumers bought 1.27 billion digital tracks last year, which accounted for 50.3% of all music sales. Digital track sales increased 8.5% in 2011. Meanwhile, physical sales declined 5%. According to Apple, there are an estimated 38 million songs in the known music universe.
7. Photos – Over 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day
8. Videos – Cisco estimates that over 90% of all Internet content will be video by 2015. Over 100,000 ‘years’ of Youtube video are viewed on Facebook every year. Over 350 million Youtube videos are shared on Twitter every year. Netflix streams 2 billion videos per quarter.
9. Television – According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day, and owns 2.2 televisions. An estimated 41% of our information currently comes from television.
10. Movies – There are currently over 39,500 movie screens in the U.S. with over 4,500 of them converted to 3D screens. The average American goes to 6 movies per year. However, almost one-third of U.S. broadband Households use the Internet to watch movies on their TV sets, according to Park Associates. That number is growing, with 4% of U.S. households buying a video media receiver, such as Apple TV and Roku, over the 2011 holiday season
11. Radio – Satellite radio subscribers, currently at 20 million, is projected to reach 35 million by 2020. At the same time, Internet radio is projected to reach 196 million listeners by 2020. These combined equal the same number as terrestrial radio listeners.
12. Blogs – There are currently over 70 million WordPress blogs and 39 million Tumblr blogs worldwide.
13. Podcasts – According to Edison Research, an estimated 70 million Americans have listened to a podcast. The podcast audience has migrated from being predominantly “early adopters” to more closely resembling mainstream media consumers.
14. Apps – There are now over 1.2 million smartphone apps with over 35 billion downloads. Sometime this year the number of apps will exceed the number of books in print – 3.2 million.
15. Presentations – Leading the charge in this area, SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. With 60 million monthly visitors and 130 million pageviews, it is amongst the most visited 200 websites in the world.
16. Courseware – The OpenCourseware movement has been catching fire with Apple leading the charge. iTunesU currently has over 1,000 Universities participating from 26 countries. Their selection of classes, now exceeding the 500,000 mark, have had over 700 million downloads. They recently announced they were expanding into the K-12 market.
17. Personal Networks – Whether its LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest, people are becoming increasingly reliant on their personal network for information. There are now over 2.8 billion social media profiles, representing around half of all Internet users worldwide. LinkedIn now has over 147 million members. Facebook has over 1.1 billion members and accounts for 20% of all pageviews on the Internet. Google+ currently has over 90 million users.

Each of these forms of information has a place in future libraries. Whether or not physical books decline or even disappear has little relevance in the overall scheme of future library operations.

Steve Jobs introducing iCloud

The Coming Era of the Library Cloud

In June 2011, Steve Jobs made his final public appearance at a software developer’s conference to unveil iCloud; a service that many believe will become his greatest legacy.

As Jobs envisioned it, the entire universe of songs, books, movies, and a variety of other information products would reside in iCloud and could be “pulled down” whenever someone needed to access it.

People would initially purchase the product through iTunes, and Apple would keep a copy of it in iCloud. So each subsequent purchase by other Apple users would be a quick download directly from iCloud.

Whether or not the information universe develops in the cloud like Jobs has envisioned, libraries will each need to develop their own cloud strategy for the future.

As an example, at a recent library event I was speaking at, one librarian mentioned she had just ordered 50 Kindles and 50 Nooks for their library. At the time, she was dealing with the restrictions from publishers that only allowed them to load each digital book on 10 devices. So which devices get the content in the end?

Over time, it’s easy to imagine a library with 350 Kindles, 400 iPads, 250 Nooks, 150 Xooms, and a variety of other devices. Keeping track of which content is loaded on each device will become a logistical nightmare. However, having each piece of digital content loaded in the cloud and restricting it to 10 simultaneous downloads will be far more manageable.

This snapshot in time could have been preserved by your local library.

The Value of the Community Archive

What was your community like in 1950, or for that matter in 1850 or even 1650? What role did your community play during the Civil War? How active was it during the Presidential elections of 1960? How did local people react to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

We have access to plenty of history books that give us the “official story” of all the major events throughout history. But understanding the intersection of our city, our village, or our community with these earth-changing events has, for the most part, never been captured or preserved. In the future, this will become one of the most valuable functions provided by a community library.

Libraries have always had a mandate to archive the records of their service area, but it has rarely been pursued with more than passing enthusiasm. Archives of city council meetings and local history books made the cut, but few considered the library to be a good photo or video archive.

Over time, many of the newspapers, radio, and television stations will begin to disappear. As these businesses lose their viability, their storerooms of historical broadcast tapes and documents will need to be preserved. More specifically, every radio broadcast, newspaper, and television broadcast will need to be digitized and archived.

With the advent of iCloud and other similar services libraries will want to expand their hosting of original collections, and installing the equipment to digitize the information. The sale of this information to the outside world through an iTunes-like service could become a valuable income stream for libraries in the future.

Final Thoughts

Libraries, much like any living breathing organism, will have to adapt to the complex nature of the ever-changing world of information. As information becomes more sophisticated and complex, so will libraries.

Libraries are here to stay because they have a survival instinct. They have created a mutually dependent relationship with the communities they serve, and most importantly, they know how to adapt to the changing world around them.

I am always impressed with the creative things being done in libraries. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” There are a lot of beautiful dreams taking place that will help form tomorrow’s libraries.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Helping faded pages turn a fresh leaf

Restoring old and damaged books requires not just skill, but also expensive technology and insight, say experts

In December last year, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, with the help of Roja Muthiah Research Library in the city brought out two sparkling hardback volumes of mathematician Ramanujam's notebooks — the original of which was laminated and preserved in the University of Madras.

“Nobody had seen the original for close to fifty years,” says G. Sundar, Director, Roja Muthiah Research Library. The journey of the mathematician's notebook reflects both the best and the worst things that could happen to a rare book.

The first edition was published by TIFR back in 1957. They reproduced the original notebooks by photocopying the pages in black and white.

“Since technology like contrast balance was not available then, the result, though the best that could have been achieved at that time, was not satisfactory. When we were approached by TIFR to publish the second edition of the notebooks, we worked with the original laminated manuscript for two weeks, and microfilmed and digitised it. We were able to reproduce Ramanujam's writings as they are found in the original,” he adds. However, not all rare works get a new lease of life. With no set standards for conservation of books, and no agency to hold anyone accountable for faulty conservation, degeneration is almost always staring at the face of an old book.

BEST PRACTICES

One first needs to understand the distinction between conservation and restoration says, Mr. Sundar. “While conservation implies that there is intervention and the original form is changed, restoration aims to bring the book back to its original form. Conservation requires human resource, skill and availability of raw material, and restoration requires expensive technology.”

Conservation being not just science, but also an art, Mr. Sundar and Dr. Perumal, Conservator and Librarian, Saraswati Mahal Library, say that the most important aspect is to be sensitive to the article that is being restored. While methods such as Japanese tissue mending and encapsulation are recommended, lamination, to them, is a bad word. “It is like striking the death knell because the process is not reversible,” says Sundar.

“At the Sanskrit Department of the University of Madras, Marina campus, nearly 22 books were conserved using commercial lamination, and the pages were stuck to each other. I have restored two books for them,” says Mr. Renganathan, Managing Director, Photolam Systems Pvt. Ltd, who has done conservation work for several libraries, publications and state archives.

The Tamil Nadu Archives which is one of the largest repositories of rare books and manuscripts in South Asia, in its website, mentions that lamination is one of the conservation methods it uses. Authorities at the archives were unavailable for comment. “When you use a faulty method, if reflects on the item, say ten years down the line,” says Mr. Sundar.

There are two basic ethics of conservation, says Dr. Perumal. “One is that the process should be reversible and secondly, it should not affect the character of the book. Years later, if a better process of conservation is invented, you must be able to undo the old method.”

The challenge they say also lies in retaining the character of the book. “There was a lot of debate when we were restoring the notebooks of Ramanujam. We got mathematicians to read the original text and they found mistakes in it. But we said that if that is what Ramanujam wrote, that is what should go in the book,” he says.

Another major concern is the storage of conserved books. “Storage of conserved books is crucial. You need to keep environmental factors (heat, light, humidity) in mind once the book is conserved. Since Ramanujam's notebooks were stored near a coastal area, the paper got damaged. We once received a manuscript that was held together by metal holders and pins and since paper is acidic, the metal caused significant damage to it,” says Mr. Sundar.

The monsoons, Dr. Perumal asserts is when books need maximum attention. “We need to be most careful during the monsoons as books absorb moisture and fungus starts to grow. The air around the book needs to be refreshed at least once a month and the pages need to be turned on a regular basis,” says Dr. Perumal.

“We have very few conservators, and not many people take it up as a career because the remuneration is not great. Less than two percent of libraries in the country take up conservation work,” says Mr. Sundar.

When conserved well, the life of books may extend by 50 to 100 hundred years depending on the condition of the book before restoration. When it comes to conservation, it is like following the rule of the road, says Sundar. “When you have to preserve something for posterity, you have a responsibility towards it.”

Source: The Hindu, CHENNAI, April 3, 2012