Madras University Library Celebrations draw flak

The library of the University of Madras is now embroiled in yet another controversy with senior professors raising questions about the timing of the post-centenary celebrations slated for September 25.

The fete takes place even as the library has remained headless for about four years with several big ticket projects struggling to take off.

Sources in the university said that the celebrations have been organised 5 years after the library completed its centenary in 2007. About Rs 9 lakh had been sanctioned for the event. However, what has raised eyebrows is the timing, as vice-chancellor G Thiruvasagam’s tenure is set to end in October.

Speaking to Express, a senior professors said the historic library has been in neglect as far as administration is concerned. While the last full-fledged librarian retired in 2008, the post remained vacant ever since. This was despite two rounds of advertisements calling for applications. Also, there was an attempt recently by the administration to promote a deputy librarian to the post of librarian, which was defeated.

Statutes, a Syndicate member pointed out, clearly stated that the post could only be filled by direct recruitment and not through promotion.

A senior Senate member said the digitization of theses that began in 2006 was halted half way for two years and has now been restarted after negotiations with the contractor.

This apart, while an UGC notification in 2009 provided for electronic submission of theses by students through an MoU with the INFLIBNET centre, no efforts have been made to carry forward this project.

“Over 70 Universities have already done it. If MU had gone ahead, assistance would have been provided for installing anti-plagiarism software in the library, improving the overall quality of research scholars,” said a senior Senate member, who wished not to be named. While the V-C had promised the installation of the software last year, efforts on this front had been wanting, the member said.

Another project that has failed to take off is the introduction of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags for efficient cataloguing, now in place in almost all major varsities in the country.

Senior professors said while the focus should have been on recruitment of a qualified librarian and the implementation of all modernization projects, for which Rs 3.20 crore was allocated, the varsity was going ahead in a hurried manner with the celebrations, five years after the library completed its centenary. Vice-chancellor G Thiruvasagam could not be contacted for comments.

Source: Indian Express, 22 September 2012

Gauhati Commerce College to get digital library

Rs.10 crore sanctioned for the digital library will allow students to access e-journals and e-books online by just a click of the mouse.

Guwahati: The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) has sanctioned Rs. 10 crore for setting up a digital library at the 50-year-old Gauhati Commerce College here. The college had submitted the proposal to set up the digital library to the ministry in 2010 and it received its sanction recently. The state’s public works department is now preparing a detailed project report for developing the infrastructure needed to build the first digital library of a college in the state.

         Gauhati Commerce College librarian Utpal Sarma said that the digital library would incorporate internet gateway connectivity which would allow students and researchers to access e-journals, e-books and other necessary information online. “Setting up of the digital library will have many advantages. First, we will prepare a computer database of all books currently in our library, which will allow students to locate a book by a click of the mouse. Secondly, we will also provide them access to many e-journals which students can use for downloading articles for academic and research purposes,” Mr. Sarma said. He added that the digital infrastructure for the library would include LAN terminals, VSAT server and an open source software.

       “We are planning to incorporate Informatics, an open source software and e-journal provider. Informatics offers access to one billion e-books and e-journals. Students will be able to read e-books, e-journals and download them for use by making an online payment of just $2. It will be different from accessing the articles online as one is normally not able to download articles from journals because of copyright issues,” Mr. Sarma added.  The digital library is also planning to get a membership of The American Library of the Congress which will allow students to browse, surf, download and read any content available through the library, according to other college sources.

     Set up in 1962, Gauhati Commerce College offers courses in business and commerce. It also started a Centre of Management Studies in 2010 and now enrolls students in its BBA and MBA programs as well.

Read More News at: http://www.igovernment.in/node/43704

XLRI students to upgrade digital library soon

JAMSHEDPUR: Encouraged by the overwhelming response to the digital library in the remote Janumdih village of Potka block in the district, the general management programme (GMP) students of XLRI have announced upgradation of the library.

With near full capacity attendance of the young villagers, who are not only reading the books but also spending quality time surfing internet on the computer donated by the XLRI students, the organizers intend to upgrade the library with an additional collection of books. "We plan to add to the existing collection of books in the library soon," said Himanshu Singh, member of the XLRI team that together with the city-based NGO, Kalamandir opened the library and installed the computer with internet and webcam facility, earlier this month.

Singh said the digital library and the computer system, currently maintained by a local computer literate youth, Satyaji Barui, will be shifted to a nearby location in the same village. It will then be upgraded with new and interesting features. The library boasts of over 500 books in Hindi, English and Bengali.

The NGO and the XLRI team had zeroed in on Janmudih village once they were convinced that this village was most deserving of a proper library. "During our initial interactions with the local villagers, we had come across an elderly man, village pradhan, Manu Singh Sardar, who had shared with us how for several years he had been planning to open a library in the village," a member of the XLRI team said.

Deepak Suri, Devesh Thakur, Gaurav Sharma, Mayank Gupta, Ravjit Kokardekar, Mandar Buddhikot, Tanveer Anwar and Paul Jacob, were part of the team that worked on the successful implementation of the sustainable social project.

"Though this is part of our curriculum but it also gives us immense joy to see the villagers happy. With the use of Internet and books available in the library, they would gain so much knowledge with such ease," Singh said.

READ MORE NEWS AT:  TIMES OF INDIA

PU library to digitise PhD theses, insist on soft copy of new research

 By:-Snehil Sinha

Chandigarh The A C Joshi library in Panjab University is all set to digitise and convert all the PhD theses that it has stored in hard copy format. The new researches will also now be accepted only along with a soft copy of it. According to the library staff, a grant of Rs 25 lakhs from the PU funds was allocated, in principle, for this purpose, by the previous vice-chancellor, R C Sobti, before the completion of his term about three months ago.
The proposal is now awaiting final approval by the Finance Committee. The finance development officer is to decide upon a suitable date to call for a meeting and make final decisions on the sanctioning of the grant.
The A C Joshi library has a record of over ten thousand doctoral theses, in print format. The plan is to procure equipment and staff to convert these into digital soft copies. The librarian, Raj Kumar, said, “We will try to get the work outsourced once the grant is sanctioned, so that it gets done faster.”
Equipment will be procured to scan and convert the theses into pdf format and then a software will also be acquired for character recognition within the scanned files. This will be done so that keyword search in these files are possible.
According to the Dean University Instructions, Bhupinder Brar, “The process of digitisation is a step ahead towards using technology to prolong the lives of these researches. However, it can lead to an increase as well as decrease in plagiarism.”
He said that while it will become easier to copy and paste material, it will, at the same time, become easier to detect such an act.
In a similar manner, the process of saving digital copies of rare manuscripts and books had been initiated at PU about seven years back. A scanning camera was gifted to the library by an alumni in 2005. Since then, 744 manuscripts, out of a total of 1492, have been able to be scanned and saved electronically.
Raj Kumar said, “We don’t have much manpower and this work requires great precision. Many of these manuscripts are thousands of years old and one needs to be very careful with scanning each page at a time. It is a lengthy and cumbersome process which is why it is taking time. Besides only one person can do it as there is just one machine.”
A proposal of 1 crore, for the same purpose, was sent to the University Grants Commission (UGC) about a year ago.
However, when no response was received from there, the University decided to initiate the process itself, at a more modest level and the VC gave his nod to the 25 lakh project.
PU might also soon be a part of a UGC project, Shodhganga, a web portal of Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), to make all its theses available online. However, this project is still in the pipeline and a panel meeting is to be held before a Memorandum of Understanding can be signed between PU and UGC.

INFLIBNET Centre is an Autonomous Inter-University Centre (IUC) of UGC, involved in creating infrastructure for sharing of library and information resources and services among Academic and Research Institutions and works collaboratively with Indian university libraries.

More News at: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/pu-library-to-digitise-phd-theses-insist-on-soft-copy-of-new-research/993268/

Library digital plan in limbo

• By DC Correspondent 
• Visakhapatnam

The district central library in the Maharanipeta area in the city, the biggest library in Vizag, has more than one lakh books on various subjects and subscribes to around 30 magazines a month but the digitisation project of the library is yet to see the light of day.

The district central library in the Maharanipeta area in the city, the biggest library in Vizag, has more than one lakh books on various subjects and subscribes to around 30 magazines a month but the digitisation project of the library is yet to see the light of day. Although the library gets over 200-300 readers every day, it does not have a proper catalogue of existing books and journals.

In Visakhapatnam, the Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha runs 72 libraries including five grade-1 and 51 grade-2 libraries. Libraries in the city are not able to meet the demands of readers in providing a better environment and infrastructure facilities due to inadequate funds.

Thota Nagesh, chairman of the Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha said that they had submitted a proposal to government for digitisation work of the district central library to attract more readers in the city but the proposal has been pending for various reasons including funds crunch. At present, classification of books according to category is done only in the registers, he added.

The library cess, the main source of income, which is collected by local bodies, including the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) at the rate of 8 per cent of property tax, is not paid by local bodies to the Samstha. Nagesh said that the GVMC alone owes around Rs.18 crore towards payment of library cess. Sources said that government issued an order to ensure timely payment of library cess by local bodies through e-Seva centres, where the cess amount would be deducted from property tax paid by tax payers but the GVMC has not implemented the order.

More News at: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/regions/visakhapatnam/library-digital-plan-limbo-781

Shodhganga, e-way to archive theses

Sushma C N, Mysore,

University of Mysore to take up digitisation of research work

Access to the repository of theses could be a mouse click away in the near future. The University of Mysore has inked a memorandum of understanding with Inflibnet to digitise its repository of theses as part of the ‘Shodhganga’ project.

Theses submitted to various universities are not available most of the time for reference due to various reasons. Comparing notes on research already done is a difficult proposition. And this has led to repetition of research on the same topics causing wastage of human resources, money and time.

To provide an open and easy access to Indian theses and dissertations to the academic community worldwide and to avoid repetitions, the University Grants Commission in collaboration with Inflibnet (informationlibrary network) has come up with an innovative concept called ‘Shodhganga,’ a repository of Indian theses.

The system

The theses submitted by research scholars of Indian universities will be uploaded on the repository. One can go through the entire gamut of theses of choice and refer other theses too, with the help of Shodhganga. Digitisation is also part of the project wherein universities are given funds to digitise old theses.

Plagiarism in research can be avoided to a great deal with Shodhganga. The universities will be provided softwares to detect plagiarism.

“Shodhganga will help avoid the repetition of research on the same topic and help research scholars to come up with findings of their own,'' said C P Ramesh, Librarian, University of Mysore.

Shodhgangothri, another initiative, allows researchers to get to know of ongoing research in Indian universities. Under the project, the synopsis approved by the universities will be made available to researchers.

More News at: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/264392/shodhganga-e-way-archive-theses.html

Bharat Natya Mandir library to digitise rare books, create audio library of musicals

Bharat Natya Mandir, one of the oldest institutes in the city, is planning to digitise rare books and manuscripts that have been preserved in its library for decades, besides creating an audio library of musicals currently in the form of cassettes. The library boasts housing around 10,000 books. Some of them are almost a century old and do not have a second copy in the market. For instance, Vishiptrao by Waman Govind Kale is 108 years old and another rare work at the library Panipatcha Dudaivi Mohra is a historical play written in 1898.

The institute also possesses old photographs and recordings of old musical plays.

Of the 10,000 books, 5,000 are on Marathi drama, and 2,500 on one-act plays. About 1,500 are reference books and over 500 are on English and Hindi drama.

“Of the 5,000 books on Marathi drama, we will only be digitising those that are very old and are not available in the market,” said Rajeev Paranjape, a member of Bharat Natya Mandir, who has been associated with the institute for three decades now. For maintaining records, and classify all the books in the library in a systematic manner, the management has already begun the work of bar-coding books.

Books on Marathi drama at the library include Swayamvar, Maan-Apmaan, Sharda, and Sanshay-Kallol to name a few. “A number of students, researching on Marathi drama, regularly visit our library. We have books by renowned Marathi dramatists like Krushnaji Prabhakar, Annasaheb Kirloskar, Shripad Krushna Kolhatkar, Veer Vamanrao Joshi and so on,” said Mohan Mule, the librarian.

The institute has already started work on audio and video library that will include works by Jaimala Sheledar, Chhota Gandharva, Shanta Modak to name a few. “All the plays that will be included in the audio library are the ones that were performed here after 1960s,” added Paranjape. Founded in 1894, the Bharat Natya Mandir library also houses a few diaries written by several play enthusiasts, associated with the institute around 80 years back.

Source:http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/bharat-natya-mandir-library-to-digitise-rare-books-create-audio-library-of-musicals/962962/

डिजिटल जमाने में दम तोड़ रहे है पुस्तकालय

बुलंदशहर : सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी के दौर में पुस्तकालयों की स्थिति बदहाल है। लैपटॉप और टेबलेट कंप्यूटर के क्रेजी युवा पीढ़ी 'गूगल' एवं ऑनलाइन लाइब्रेरी पर भरोसा कर रही है। घर बैठे किंडल से मनपसंद उपन्यास और किताबें पढ़ रहे हैं। दूसरा पहलू यह भी है कि पुस्तकालय एवं बाचनलयों में साहित्यिक एवं वैचारिक बहस-मंथन का माहौल भी अब नहीं रहा। सरकारी एवं निजी पुस्तकालयों की रौनक लगातार कम हो रही है।

डिजिटल जमाने में पुस्तकालय दम तोड़ रहे हैं। इसके दो कारण है। पहला कि सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी के दौर में 'गूगल', 'एमएसएन' जैसे सर्च इंजन और ऑनलाइन लाइब्रेरी पुस्तकालय के विकल्प बन गए है। माउस पर एक क्लिक करने से सूचना का संसार हाजिर हो जाता है। वहीं दूसरा कारण है युवाओं में साहित्यिक पत्र-पत्रिकाओं, पुस्तक आदि को लेकर रुझान कम हुआ है। जमाना था जब पुस्तकालयों में युवा कार्ल मा‌र्क्स और गांधी पर बहस करते नजर आते थे। मा‌र्क्सवाद, पूंजीवाद, गांधीवाद आदि पर लंबी-चौड़ी बौद्धिक बहस होती थी। अब ऐसा नहीं दिख रहा है।

जनपद के अधिकांश पुस्तकालयों की रौनक फीकी हो गई। नगर के राजेबाबू रोड स्थित राजकीय पुस्तकालयों में गत एक दशक पूर्व लोग रोजना 130-150 किताबें इश्यू कराते थे। घर ले जाते और पढ़ने के बाद लौटाते थे। अब तो महीने भर में 65 पुस्तकें लोग घर ले जा रहे हैं।

राजकीय पुस्तकालय में फणीश्वर नाथ रेणु की मैला आंचल पढ़ रहे 65 वर्षीय डा. डीके शर्मा कहते हैं वह गत डेढ़ दशक से इस पुस्तकालय से जुड़े हैं। जमाना था जब रीडिंग टेबल पर दर्जनों लोग नजर आते थे। कुर्सियां कम पड़ जाती थी। अब तो गाहे-बगाहे की तीन-चार लोग एक साथ दिखते हैं।

डीएवी पीजी कालेज के प्राचार्य डा. एके शर्मा ने बताया कि इंटरनेट ने दुनियां बदल दी है। अब पुस्तकालयों में जाना जरूरी नहीं है। लैपटॉप खोलिए हर पुस्तक मौजूद है। इसका भी असर हुआ है।

समाजशास्त्री डा. केके सक्सेना की राय कुछ अलग है। उनका कहना है कि साहित्य, कला, बौद्धिक चर्चा का जो माहौल पहले था, अब नहीं है। बच्चों को पहली कक्षा से ही सिखाया जा रहा है कि उसे डाक्टर बनना है या इंजीनियर। करियर को लेकर अंधी दौड़ है। सबसे महत्वपूर्ण मोटी कमाई वाली नौकरी हो गई है। साहित्य के प्रति लोगों में ललक कम हुई है।

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