WHAT IS A DIGITAL LIBRARY? EXPLAIN NDLI AND ITS CONTRIBUTION.

SEMESTER-II
DL05 - Digital Library Architecture
ASSIGNMENT – A1
WHAT IS A DIGITAL LIBRARY? EXPLAIN NDLI AND ITS CONTRIBUTION.
By Shweta Ravindra Bhavsar
Roll No - (2019PGDLIM020)
(2019-2020)
Centre for Library and Information Management Studies
Sir Dorabji Tata Memorial Library
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. DIGITAL LIBRARY.................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 DEFINITION OF DIGITAL LIBRARY ............................................................................................... 1
1.3 TYPES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY......................................................................................................... 2
1.4 COMPONENTS OF DIGITAL LIBRARY ......................................................................................... 2
1.5 ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY.......................................................................................... 2
1.6 DISADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY ................................................................................... 2
2. NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY OF INDIA............................................................................................ 3
2.1 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................. 3
2.2 FEATURES OF NDLI.......................................................................................................................... 3
2.3 WHY NDLI............................................................................................................................................. 6
3. NDLI CONTRIBUTION............................................................................................................................. 6
4. ISSUE WITH NDLI.................................................................................................................................... 6
5. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................ 7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................ 7

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1. What is a digital library? Explain NDLI and its contribution.
Answer
1. DIGITAL LIBRARY
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The library and information science community treat digital libraries as “logical extension
and augmentation of physical libraries in the electronic information society” (Marchionini,
1998). The exponential growth of Information and Communicational Technology specifically
World Wide Web (WWW) have impact on evolving digital library, automated library, hybrid
library. Basic concept of digital library is to give access to resources globally for providing
right information to the right user at the right time. The current technology offers many
tools, easy and convenient user-centric services and inexpensive access to high speed
internet services which is resulted into evolution of traditional libraries in digital libraries.
There are three types of digital libraries Stand-alone digital library, Federated digital library,
and Harvested digital library. Maintaining the digital collection have become necessity in this
information and knowledge society. Nowadays, traditional libraries are moving towards
digitization of resources to make resources available to user community. Digital libraries
give access to both digitized (print) as well as born-digital information. The main objective
of digital library is to collect, store, organise and access information in digital form via
communication channels. For digitization many initiatives are taken by government and
private bodies. Digital libraries are nothing but the software systems which contains digital
collection. E-books, e-journals, databases, webpages, digital audio, and video, etc. are the
e-resources of the digital library. Digital libraries are maintaining the resources by using
different open source and proprietary software like DSpace, Fedora, Eprints,
Greenstone, SLIM21, etc. Remote access to e-resources is possible because of Proxy
services.
1.2 DEFINITION OF DIGITAL LIBRARY
• (Arms, 2001) defined “managed collection of information, with associated services,
where the information is stored in digital formats and accessible over a network.”
• (Fox, 1999) "New way of carrying out the functions of libraries encompassing new
types of information resources, new approaches to classification and cataloguing,
intensive use of electronic systems and networks and dramatic shifts in intellectual,
organizational and electronic practices"

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1.3 TYPES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY
 Stand-alone Digital Library (SDL) – It is regular Digital Library and include Self-
contained material. Localized on LAN. Example – Library of Congress (LC)
 Federated Digital Library (FDL) – Includes many autonomous libraries. This are
heterogeneous repositories connected via network. Interoperability is main issue.
Example – Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC)
 Harvested Digital Library (HDL) – Not a complete Digital Library. Objects harvested
into Metadata. Contains metadata and summaries. Example – OAI
1.4 COMPONENTS OF DIGITAL LIBRARY
Fig 1.1 Components of Digital Library (Pandey, 2014).
1.5 ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY
Unlike traditional libraries, digital libraries helping to acquiring updated and current
information sources in the library. Collection development in digital libraries is easier and
faster also libraries can get discount for acquiring collection through consortium
subscription. These libraries are easier to organize and reorganize. User can access
digital library resources from anywhere, anytime in the world and multiple users can
access single resource at one time. Provides more personalized and retrospective
services also provide access to much richer content in more structured manner.
Digital libraries preserve digitized heritage of information, restore lost data easily.
Durability of e-resources is high than physical resources. Knowledge managers are
getting more opportunities to explore and develop them than one in traditional libraries.
The digital library promotes formal and informal education environment.
1.6 DISADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL LIBRARY
In digital libraries copyright violation issue can be raised due to digitization. Initial
infrastructure cost is very high. High speed of band width is required. Technology is

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changing rapidly and become out-of-date this affects the preservation of the data. Always
need to convert the data in latest format for storage. Still some users prefer traditional library
environment. Information explosion is a serious problem.
2. NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY OF INDIA
2.1 INTRODUCTION
 Official Website : - https://www.ndl.gov.in/
 Slogan :- One Library All of India
 Logo : -
Millions of students Turing 18 every month in India and for educating them monthly India
needs to bridge 6 Universities and 270 colleges (FICCI, 2016). By developing National
Digital Library of India, India trying to overcome this problem. It is contributing in
Government’s mission “Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat”. Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD) had started “Pilot Phase – I” National Mission project of National
Digital Library of India (NDLI) in April 2015 under its National Mission on Education through
Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) and launched by. NDLI is
collaborated with Academic, Public, special and International libraries. This project is
developed at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) and launched
by Union Human Resource Minister Prakash Javadekar on 19 June 2018 and dedicated to
Nation. NDLI project is sponsored by National Mission on Education through Information
and Communication Technology (NMEICT) and arranged funding through MHRD. National
Digital Library of India is virtual repository provides single-window search facility for
learning resources. Main motto is open and inclusive for all and provide quality education
to anyone, anywhere and anytime. The Vision of NDLI is “With a vision to turn NDLI into
a National Knowledge Asset, this library serves to function as a key driving force for
education, research, innovation, and knowledge.” (NDLI, n.d.) And mission is “To create a
24X7-enabled integrated ubiquitous digital knowledge source for the Nation – catering to
immersive e-Learning for all learners, at all levels, in all areas.” (NDLI, n.d.) And “To initiate
a movement for Integrated Digital Learning across India.” (NDLI, n.d.).
2.2 FEATURES OF NDLI
NDLI combines resources from different Indian Institutional repositories and
educational, public, special, research libraries. The resources are available for all age
group and differently abled users including from primary school students to postgraduate
students to life-long learner. Metadata is the heart of NDLI as NDLI does not store content

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it just provides metadata for search and browse. Generic Metadata includes Doblin Core
metadata, Educational Metadata this set of metadata uses Learning Resource Metadata
Initiative (LRMI), Thesis Metadata adopted Shodhganga thesis metadata standard. Filtered
and federated searching is used by NDLI. It covers almost every subject area includes
Science and Technology, Medical, Social Science, Literature, Law & Management, etc.
More than 4.8 crore resources are there in NDLI. Almost 105 resource types including
book, newsletter, photographs, quiz, script, activity, album, audio and video lectures,
catalogue, datasets, broadcast etc are available from almost 278 sources. Resources are
available in 300 languages.
Fig 2.1 Dashboard of NDLI (NDLI, n.d.)
NDLI is open access library where registration is free for all. Without registration users can
access and download NDLI resources up to certain level but for some facilities users needs
to create an account in NDLI. Institutional and Individual membership is available. In
institution membership Institutional Nodal Person is representative and can do bulk
registration for his institution. It has total 55 lakh registered users. Content repository and
content course are the main components of NDLI. User can access web interface in
eleven Indian regional languages. Primarily, can search the collection in English, Bengali,
Hindi language. Users can mainly browse collection by Type, Subject, Source, Learning
resource. Further users can filter the collection by access restriction, author, subject
category, education degree, education level, difficulty level including Medium, difficult and
easy, file format, language, learning resource type. By these access types NDLI provides
personalized learning. NDLI , MNDLI,Metadata standards are the products of NDLI.
Open where full text is available for all users e.g. NCERT ,NDLI users full-text
available to registered users of NDLI and not directly from source available through NDLI

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Limited access abstract is available but for full-text authentication is required from
source authority e.g. IISER Bhopal, , Subscribed - for accessing full text subscription
of resource is required e.g. Springer , Restricted - for full text authorization and
separate log-in is required these are the five types of right wise content access e.g. IIT
Jodhpur.
MNDLI(National Digital Library of India)Mobile has its own mobile application support
Android and iOS also available through Umang application. Winner of mBillionth South
Asia Award 2017 For Learning and Education Category for Android Mobile App category.
NDL India services is structured in three layers called 3-tier model. Digital Repository level
provides acquisition and authorisation service, Digital Library level provides content search
and content access dissemination service, third and outer layer is National Digital Library
of India which provide multi-lingual and multi-faceted search.
NDLI Team
Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti (Principal Investigator) is a head of the NDLI team. Team
has data analysts, content curators, IT engineers, pedagogy officers, data scientists, and
many other trans-disciplinary talents. According to Wikipedia more than 150 employees are
working in NDLI (“National Digital Library of India,” 2020)
Regional Centre
National Digital Library of India has two regional centres one is North-East Regional Centre
at IIT Guwahati (email - pro@iitg.ernet.in) and Second one is in Anna Centenary Library
Kotturpuram Chennai (email - vignesh@ndl.gov.in) this is South Regional Centre.
Partnership National Digital Library of India has almost 200 content partners who
provides content to NDLI. Includes Internet Archives, CORE, ACM Digital Library, Spoken
Tutorial, arXiv.org, CSIR, CiteSeerX, WHO, Zenedo, Shodhganga, etc. It has hundreds of
Workshop partners. The British Library and rightsstatements.org are the international
partners of NDLI.
Fig 2.2 Milestones (NDLI Project Website n.d.)

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2.3 WHY NDLI
NDLI provides customised and personalised services where information can be search
through single-window interface available in multi-lingual and multi-faceted. Available
around the clock.
3. NDLI CONTRIBUTION
• National Digital Library is contributing in many India’s missions for education such as
“Education for all” & “Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat.”
• Main contribution in this COVID-19 pandemic is NDLI has created “COVID-19
RESEARCH REPOSITORY” which provides scholarly publications, datasets, Ideas
& funding, Challenges & startup, etc.
• NDLI is key driving force for democratize education.
• IDR service helps to set up basic IDR infrastructure. Enable to set up Institutional
Digital Repository those institution who do not have internet connectivity of good
bandwidth, lack of budget, and stability or IT manpower constraints.
• By providing access to everyone NDLI encouraging every student, researcher,
teacher, etc for learning. It is contributing in encouraging researcher, users,
institutions to create new scholarly content and share own content in open access
initiatives.
• Through Learning Management initiatives such as SWAYAM, NPTEL, etc NDLI
encourages students for self-learning at their own pace. It makes available resources
for entrance and competitive examinations at one platform which is easier that is
saves the time of students.
• By providing access to differently abled persons NDLI is proving that every user has
a right to study.
• Regional centres conducts many workshops on different topic which helps to increase
the knowledge. Also, NDLI club conducts many activities such as Makerspace,
debate which are beneficial or users.
• NDLI conduct International book fair International KBF also KEDL.
4. ISSUE WITH NDLI
NDLI does not take responsibility for relevance, inclusiveness, validity, reliability and
suitability of the resources. Also does not take any responsibility for pertinent sources portal
being not accessible due to technical issue. Copyright challenge is main issue as
resources require authentication in NDLI also received rights violations notices. For the
quality, visibility readability and accuracy of digitized material NDLI is not responsible.

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There is no standardization of reading software and formats this creates problem for users
and service providers. Due to rapid technological obsolesce service provider needs to
convert sources from one format to another.
5. CONCLUSION
Globalization and ICT revolution increased the availability of e-resources and that
changed the role of library from traditional library to digital library. Digital libraries are
helping librarians to fulfil the demands and challenges which are emerged due to the
technological revolution. National Digital Library is one of the biggest global cyberspace
containing different resources from multidiscipline and users can access anytime from
anywhere mainly difficulty level, choice of language education level, and Indian regional
languages. NDLI helping India to achieve goal “Education for all”. It is very clear that use
of digital libraries is expected to increase in future and digital libraries are boon in this
information and knowledge society.
REFERENCES
1. Arora, J. (n.d.). Digital Library Planning and Implementation. e-PG Pathshala. Retrieved
from https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=21
2. Arms, W. Y. (2001). Digital Libraries. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (ISBN: 0-262-
01880-8.)
3. Bashir,B. Nahida, N. & Ahmad, L. F (2019). National Digital Library of India: An
Overview. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) 2601,(n.d.) . Retrieved from
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2601/
4. Few Disadvantages of Digital Library. (2013, October 11) Retrieved June 13,2020 from
rosiebuckborough ~ A topnotch WordPress.com site
https://teamofthefuture.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/few-disadvantages-of-digital-library/
5. FICCI (2016). Future of jobs and its implications on Indian higher education. Retrieved
from http://www.ficci.in/spdocument/20787/FICCI-Indian-Higher-Education.pdf
6. Fox, E. A. (1999). Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI) Projects 1994-1999. Bulletin of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology, 26(1), pp. 7-11.
https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.135
7. Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C. and Komlodi, A. (1998). Interfaces and tools for the Library
of Congress National Digital Library Program. Information Processing and Management,
34(5), 535-555. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4573(98)00020-X
8. National Digital Library of India. (2020). In Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Digital_Library_of_India
9. NDLI. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2020, from https://www.ndl.gov.in/
10. NDLI Project Website (n.d.) Retrieved June 14, 2020 https://ndlproject.iitkgp.ac.in/

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11. Pandey, S. (2014). Digital library technologies [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from
https://pt.slideshare.net/ShriramPandey/unit-2digital-library-technologies-
shriram/8?smtNoRedir=1
12. Sornamohan, V. (n.d.). NDLI User Awareness Webinar for Gnanamani College of
Technology [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bjPIn5OjreW1HkQPg177tANBe2ttCjMu/view?usp=shari
ng
13. T.Sharon, & A.Frank (n.d.). Internet Resources Discovery (IRD) Types of Digital
Libraries [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://slideplayer.com/slide/4905672/

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