JamiaMillia Islamia hasjoined National Digital Library,project initiated by the Ministry of HumanResource Development, which will enable its students and researchers to accesslarge amount of data through a single window search.
Mr H. J. Abidi, University Librarian of Zakir HusainLibrary,talks to Shaheryar Hossain on digitization of Jamia Millia Islamia campus.
Excerptsfrom the interview:
JMIhas joined the National Digital Library (NDL), how it is going to enhance thelearning pattern?
NDLwill integrate all the existing digitized and digital content across the institutionsof the nation to provide a single window access to the users. This is the basicconcept of NDL. So, all the institutions have been asked by NDL to develop theirinstitutional repository.
InSeptember 2016, NDL nominated J University Librarian of Zakir HusainLibraryas their nodal officer to develop the institutional repository of JMI. We willprovide the meta-data of our e-content to NDL. However, the actual data willremain with us (JMI) and there will be a link given to the NDL. For example, aPh D student from Delhi University (also a NDL member), is searching forinformation/ data or resources on Library Science. If the student is surfingthe NDL website and finds that JMI’s archive is having the detailed informationthen a link will be provided to him.
How it (NDL) is going to bridge the gapbetween the students and faculty member of JMI?
All the students have been given Login IDand Password so that they can access resources available with NDL. With thehelp of single window, they can login and get the data from anywhere across thenation. The learning process will become easy under the single umbrella of NDL.
The NDL project was established at IITKharagpur around one and a half year ago. In a bid to explain about thetechnical aspect, the NDL officials are conducting workshops for facultymembers on how to develop meta-data and institutional repository in asystematic way.
How NDL will help JMI students? Who (students fromwhich class, course) are eligible to avail NDL facility in your institute?
Earlier, the students had to search thewebsites of different institutes separately to get the information/resources/data.They need not have to waste time for gathering information on diverse topics invarious sectors including economic, technical, strategic and social sectors. Nowonwards, NDL website will give all the information in one click. It will savetheir time. NDL is for all level of students. It is a pan India knowledge repositoryoffering books, journals, magazines, videos, and web courses in different languagesfrom school to PG level. Except forcopyrighted content, the data will mostly be available free.
What is your message to NDL?
Thisis very good concept. At present, the NDL website is available in threelanguages – English, Hindi and Bengali. The NDL officials are mulling to makethe website available in different vernaculars. The Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment (MHRD) initiated the NDL as pilot project under National Mission onEducation through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) in April2015. NDL’s Professor Partha Pratim Dasalso conducted a workshop to enlighten faculty members of JMI on the technicalaspects of the digital library.
What is your message to MHRD?
Itis very good initiative of MHRD. We wish that MHRD should provide us assistancein terms of expertise and finance for developing our institution’s repositoryso that we can digitize the huge quantity of materials available with us.
