Lok Sabha Question No. 2682 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-03-12
Subject: Digital Library
Ministry: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: B. SREERAMULU

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2682 TO BE ANSWERED ON 12.03.2018

Digital Library

## 2682. SHRI B. SRIRAMULU:

## Will the Minister of HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- a. whether  the  Government  has  awarded  a  pilot  project  for  development  of National Digital Library (NDL) to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur;
- b. if so, the details thereof with the progress made during the last three years;
- c. whether  the  Government  has  checked/verified  from  national/international library  organizations/associations  that  NDL  is  a  digital  library  project  or  just Online National Union Catalogue and if so, the details thereof and the funds allocated to IIT, Kharagpur during the last three years for NDL;
- d.  whether the NDL is different than of Digital Library of India (DLI), hosted by Indian  Institute  of  Science,  Bangalore  and  if  so,  the  details  thereof  with  its advantages/disadvantages over DLI and if not, the reasons therefor; and
- e.  the  other  steps  being  taken  by  the  Government  to  merge  various  national level digital libraries/repositories/union catalogues like DLI, NDL, Developing Library Network (DELNET), Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET)etc. to save Public money?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (DR. SATYA PAL SINGH)

- (a) Yes,  the  pilot  project  for  development  of  National  Digital  Library  (NDL)  was awarded to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur in April 2015.
- (b) NDL  was  opened  to  students,  faculty  members  and  staff  members  of Centrally Funded Educational Institutes in February 2016. Subsequently it has been opened progressively to users of select institutes such as AICTE, UGC and finally it has been opened to general public in February 2017. Anybody can go to the site

https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in,  register  and  start  using  the  Library.  It  is  also  available  as Mobile App (Android and iOS). Both the web and mobile applications are free to use.

NDL functions 24x7. Currently it contains more than 152 lakh e-contents. The contents cover all domains of education and all levels of learners from school level to the highest level of education including life-long learners. Contents of more than 100 languages including 26 Indian languages are currently available in NDL. Currently NDL has an active user base of more than 14 lakh. Daily hit to the Library is more than 25000.

- (c) NDL is a digital library based on metadata searching of the digital resources and  not  a  Union  Catalogue.  Unlike  catalogue  services,  NDL  users  can  access resources directly from NDL. In NDL, full-text access is free for open resources and nationally subscribed resources. There are also resources in NDL which may need permission from the source authority/author or subscription (to respective publishers) to access full-text.

A team of eminent Librarians and Library Science Professors of the country carried  out  a  comparative  study  between  NDL  and  six  major  International  Digital Libraries of the world. They found NDL is comparable to other International Digital Libraries.

For the Pilot phase, over last 3 years, Rs 26.86 Crore has been remitted to IIT Kharagpur.

- (d) The charter Digital Library of India (DLI) is to digitize copyright free books and host them in a digital repository/library. The charter of NDL is to make existing digital resources easily searchable and accessible to the users through a single window by integrating existing digital repositories/libraries. So the charters are quite distinct and hence no comparison of advantages/disadvantages is applicable.
- (e) INFLIBNET is already integrated in NDL which means NDL users can access resources hosted in INFLIBNET through the single window search facility of NDL.

DLI was integrated with NDL in 2016. However, presently since the DLI site is not working NDL is not linked to DLI.

DELNET is an online union catalogue and does not host any digital content or support content metadata needed for search in NDL.