Digital Library * Vinay Kumar Kainthola This paper identifies the importance of digital library and focuses on the

requirements for setting up a digital library. Author presents synonym of Digital Library and gives brief definition of Digital Library and quotes some well known definition. He highlights the purposes, need, main components and goal of digital library. Further, he discusses the considerable issues before digitization, highlights the greenstone Library software and the Digitization process. Again, he explains problems, advantages and disadvantages/problems of the digital library and other related issues. In the last he

explains digital library as an instrument for social progress.

Introduction
The convergence of Information Technology profoundly boosted the information explosion and increased the exponential rate of publication, changed the existing phenomena, invented many powerful electronic weapons, and made electronic information affordable. Internet is one of them and it has been providing information 24-hours. Now user can access information any time from any corner of the Universe. We must understand that Internet is also a kind of digital library where books, articles, journals, reports, latest and current information are being moved around all the time and a carload of new information are entered at the entrance of every hour. Accessibility, affordability and dependability of Internet has produced the bulk of digital objects and the collection of these digital objects made the way for Digital Library. The functions of these libraries are totally based on unlimited networks. The concept of digital reality has conceived about 25 years back. The term digital library has got different meanings in different communities, such as "Electronic Library", "Virtual Library", "Library Without Walls", "Computerization of Traditional Library", "24-Hour Electronic Library", ATAEL (All Time Accessible Electronic Library, "World Library",

"Internet Library", "An Electronic Version of a Public Library". Digital Library can be taken as a synonym for "Computer Readable Library" also. Digital Library is a not a single entity. It is collection of organized digital objects which are available online on large number of distributed networks (these networks are very fast where data transmits with a high speed) which are connected to each other. Digital libraries are the repositories of huge volumes of homogeneous electronic data with primitive access to the large number of users. Information are stored in digital, analog integrated text, audio, video, sound and graphics". R. R. Larson considered "Digital library as a global virtual library and the library of

thousands of networked electronic libraries". ODLIS (Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science has defined Digital Library "A library in which a significant proportion of the resources are available in machine-readable format, as opposed to print or microform. In libraries, the process of digitization began with the catalog, moved to periodical indexes and abstracting services, then to periodicals and large reference works, and has now reached book publishing

Purposes & need of Digital Library Success of the digital libraries in developed countries has drawn the our attention towards the digital library. While going for a digital library many questions come to our mind such as why we are digitizing? Will it fulfill our needs & many other questions? Answers of some of these are mentioned below: To improve the quality & quantity of library services To promote the economical and efficient delivery of information. To encourage the resource sharing To make lifelong depository For the sake of democracy, education etc. For the sake of "Good Life".
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To encourage the communication & collaboration between and among research, academic and special libraries Open access to users Knowledge dissemination

government,

To put the digital material online. So, these materials can be found and used easily. To make digital material more broadly, quickly and efficiently accessible Portability of documents Accessible on World Wide Web (www)

Main components of Digital Library Digital Library is the collection of the multimedia objects which are linked together and are available online for use and these digital objects form a digital library. Main Components of a digital library Information in text on paper Video pictures/clippings Graphics Images Photographs Audio (Sound) Information in Digital form

In simple words we can say that Digital Libraries are based on Multimedia Technology. Therefore some expert calls it High Speed Network of Multimedia Systems. Goal of a Digital Library: Act as a specialized repository The broad goal of a Digital Library is to collect, store, organize, the digital objects and use widely distributed knowledge resources containing diverse types of information and content stored in different electronic form and put them online for its user.
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A Shift towards the Digital Library Traditional Library Automation in the library Conversion of non Digital material (TextAudioVideoGraphicsImages etc.) into Digital Material to save the space and increase the durability Interanet ( limited access of digital objects to a specific

group)/Internet (access to all encouraged the production of Digital objects) Digital Library (Paperless Society) ( bulk of production of digital objects encouraged the Digital Library concept) Considerable issues before digitization There are some issues which should be considered before starting the digitizing process such as cost, intellectual property rights, quality ( authenticity) of the contents. In addition policy decisions must be made for example which formats to be adapt and subsequently decision about the software, interface, platforms, database tools, scanner, storage device, backing up systems, firewalls, watermarks, security, updating tools, sound implementation plan, search engine, and the most important, what should be digitized i.e. papers, manuscript, photographs, audio/video tapes, selection/acquisition and the maintenance cost (AMC) etc. Intellectual Property/ Retrospective conversion While going for digitization we must avoid the legal problems of violations of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) because it is one of the controversial issue. This right helps a creator to earn the fair reward for his hard work and protects a variety of literary and artistic works. At the time of conversion of a non-digital make sure that we have right to use it and provide the notice of copyright. Procurement in digital version Avoid the conversion process which is very complicated, time consuming and costly. Preference should be given to digital objects. Insure whether the digital version of the document is available in the market or can it be used for digital library.
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object,

Future Possibilities Technology has been changing with a rapid pace. It becomes obsolete in few Days. Therefore, it should be kept in mind at the time of the procurement of Digital Tool kit. Scalability Prediction of the growth of the size of the digital library storage capacity of Database should be done in advance. Compression Method & Technique Compression can make a very large difference because a compressed image can be almost 10x smaller than the raw material. Therefore, decision about the proper compression technique/ method should taken in advance and right tools should be used for the same. Security measurement/Protection for virus, hacking Hacking of the sites and Virus are the very common problem on the net. Therefore, security measurement to protect the digital library form viruses, hacking etc. must be done in advance. Resources /Time Calculation about the approximate expenditure and duration must be done before starting the job. Integrated Library System

An integrated Library System/Software should be procured to build and distribute the digitized objects. The Greenstone Digital Library Software can be used for this work. This software is available free on the net (http://www. ) and can be downloaded under the General Public License. This software provides all facilities to organize the digital collection and put them on net. This is open source code free software and supports the Z39.50 International Protocol for exchanging information.

Helps you create new collections, modify or add to existing ones, or delete collections

Allows you to add new users, summarizes the collections in the system, gives technical information on the Greenstone installation

Tells you about the Greenstone software and the New Zealand Digital Library Project where it originated

Greenstone manuals

Greenstone Digital Library Software List of Some projects where Greenstone Digital Library Software is being used New Zealand Digital Library Project Russian Greenstone Library Project Gutenberg University of Applied Sciences Stuttgart Gresham College Archive
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Center for the Study of Digital Libraries Peking University Digital Library Canadian Institute for Science and Technical Information Music Information Retrieval Research Photograph Album Aladin Special Collections of Digital Library

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Front page of the New Zealand Digital Library(http://www.nzdl.org/cgi-bin/library) Requirements Comparatively a physical library requires more fund than a digital library but still setup of a digital library needs significant amount to covert non digital object in digital form or to edit digital objects and for many other related works. A Digital Library requires the following equipment :1. Powerful Web Server 2. Space on net/Connectivity to internet/Networking 3. A pool of experts in Digital Technology/Internet Technology 4. Routers 5. Modem 6. Tape/Disk Backups 7. CD-ROMs 8. CD-Drives 9 Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS) 10. Printers 11. Fax machines
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12. Telephone system 13. Suitable Platform 14. A faster scanner/ Digital Camera/Microfilm Camera/ Microfilm Scanner 15. CD-writer 16. A audio/video player/Sound Card/VG card/ MPEG conversion (Video)/ MP3 conversion (Audio) 17. Database software selection (Oracle, Sybase, SQL etc.) 18.. E-Mail services 19. CD-ROM Drives

Digitization Process & Technical aspects Digitization process includes many complicated steps such as scanning of original (Books, Papers, Pictures, Graphics, Maps, Photographs) or photocopied documents in images and stored in a file. Scanning of these materials can be done by different settings or in different layout. These images are stored in file for formatting and editing. These images are converted into a specific format for editing. These formats using high quality Optical Character Recognition Software (OCR - Recognizes the shapes of the letters of the alphabet and produces a file exactly the same as one produced by a world processor) which transforms scanned images of text into text. These objects are carefully scrutinized and verified to check the accuracy of converted text. These images reduce the size of digital objects. These images and texts are converted in HTML/XML formats which inter linked these digital objects to each other. Conversion of these images is done in GIFF format (Graphic Interchange Format) to save the space. Compression of sound images to reduce the space and increase the compatibility of objects . Digitization Process Selection and collection of document

Scanning of the document

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OCR of the document Proof Reading, formatting & editing

Compression of files Hyperlinking Installation of Search Engine, which will Installation of the digital Compilation of all digital objects in a of digital objects enable the user to search the relevant document objects in customized software Web form with the help of HTML, XML, Java Script etc. Installation of Search Engine A Digital Library requires powerful search engine, which would enable its user to search/retrieve relevant information, and that should also support Boolean logic, brackets, and proximity operators. Dynamic links to other libraries It is very difficult for one library to acquire all digital information. Therefore, links to other related libraries should be provided. Advantages ATAEL: All time accessible electronic library Digital libraries are available online and can be used 24 hours in a day. There is no time bar for users to access the digital library. A use can access and retrieve the relevant information from his/her house or from any part of the universe.
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Cooperation and Resource Sharing of expensive resources Information Technology has changed the existing trend of information seeking behaviour of user and emphasized on resource sharing. In near future only a resource sharing librarian would survive Now, a user wants to access all the available information within a few seconds. It is also point, which forced librarian/management to think upon digital reality. A group of large numbers of libraries can easily perform the resource sharing and cooperation task. This would also help library management to reduce the library budget. Because, libraries are the main centre whose budget could be reduced by the management. Although, there is no doubt that libraries are the heart of an academic institute. In this direction, many networks have been formed such as DELNET, INFLIBNET, MANLIBNET, CALIBNET and many libraries are doing resource sharing through these networks. At present these networks are only providing bibliographic and limited information. By digitizing the resources of these networks users can access the full-text digital information. Users will get better information then ever before. This would also help user to access the documents of other libraries without paying money or paying less money and user can use virtual collection of other libraries without visiting them. Better opportunities to Research scholars Research scholars would be benefited from the digital library. Earlier they had to spend lot of time in doing literature search or knowing the facts about their topic. Digital library certainly would help them in retrieving the entire retrospective or prospective search within few second, if not then in few minutes. It would help them to use maximum number of documents/reports/papers etc. in limited time and would certainly increase the ratio of the useful research and save the time.

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Improvement in Library Services There are no doubts that digital library would improve the quality & quantity of the library services. Library management would be in better position to provide large number of services with good quality to its users. Space, Cost & Man Power Saving In the modern world space is a great problem. As the Fifth Law of the library science says that library is a growing organism. It means library intend to cover much area for facilitating its services. As a library cover much space it needs more manpower and for more manpower requires more fund but the digitization of library materials certainly would solve the space problem. All the above problems forced librarians/archivists to think upon the digital library. Depository for the future Digital library would be depository for the future and could be easily available and accessible for a very long period. These libraries could be preserved for heritage. There are some organization who are deeply involved in making Digital depository for the future. V. V Giri National Labour Institute, Noida , is one of them which took initiative towards making future depository. Indian Labour in a very small hall. They have started digitization of the imported documents such as reports, evidence and documents, related to the Indian Labour both published or unpublished. Remote access to expensive and rare material (World Library) Digital library makes its digital objects and services accessible remotely through different variety of networks such as intranet (for limited number of users) or internet (unlimited users) and which are easily accessible. Simultaneously large number of people can access it. This institute has been developing a Digital Archives on

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No Geographic barrier: - Digital library can be accessed from any part of the world. Better conservation: - Information in digital form can be used or preserved for a long period (long term access). Digital Library As a meeting place: - Digital library can act as a meeting place for the people of the similar interest and they can share their views, experiences and ideas.

Easy downloading: - Digital material can be download easily. Useful tool for distance education Easy for users, instead of going in the stacks and carrying documents now they can retrieve information from digital library. Nothing goes out of print Print in any format Less chances of tearing and damaging documents User friendliness Speed of distribution and production of digital library is very fast on the other hand paper material takes much time. Save the time of users and staff

Disadvantages/Problems 1. Different standard, formats, protocols 2. Theft or misuse of content 3. Fair use of the library 4. Using net is not a easy task for common man and it needs some skill 5. Obsolescence of hardware and software 6. Hacking of sites 7. Virus attack List of Associations which are playing leading role in the development of digital library
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1. IFLA International Federation of Library Association ( http://www.ifla.org) 2. ALA American Library Association (http://www/ala.org) 3. SLA Special Libraries Association ( http://www.sla.org) 4. LA Library Association (http://www.la.org.uk) 5. RLG Research Libraries Group (http://www.rlg.org) 6. CNI Confederation for Networked Information (http://www.cni.org) List of Digital Library 1. NSF National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov) 2. DLI Digital Library Initiative (www.dli1.nsf.gov) 3. SIGIR Special Interest Group - Information Retrieval (ACM, BCS, etc) 4. ASIS American Society for Information Science (www.asis.org) 5. DLF Digital Library Federation (www.clir.org)
6. UKOLN UK Office for Libraries and Networks (www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib)

Digital initiative in India Digital software with camparision Greenstone, Dspace, Elibrary Bhoore Steps from ?????? website Unesco book

Conclusion : Digital Library as an instrument for social progress Digital Library is surely a landmark and indispensable. . It has been playing important role in the development of the civilized society. In this context, we can take the examples of the developed countries where .information is easily accessible and reachable. The emerging trend of digital libraries has made information 24 hours available. The accessibility and availability of

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the information has developed more democratic society. and providing great opportunity for the development of more economical, transparent and user driven library Digital Library is an important tool for information seekers. They would be able to access the information from any corner of the world. It would certainly increase the resource sharing among the libraries. It would also play significant role in developing academic society. There is no doubt that the availability of the Digital Library would improve the efficiency of the library services. Although there are some problems which need to be faced by the library professionals. But remain viable and competitive in the next millennium we must have to follow the emerging trend of digital library because there is no doubt that digital library would be playing pivotal role in serving the needs of user. It would provide more democratic, egalitarian and richly diverse society. It would act as an instrument for social progress

References Ansari, Mehtab Alam, 12 -18, January 2002, Digital Library, Employment News Arms, William, Y. ;Blanchi, Christophe; Overly, Edward A. D-Lib Magazine , Feb 1997 An Architecture for Information in Digital libraries, Report on the Digitization Process of the First National Commission on Labour Documents (Unpublished) , V.V.Giri, National Labour Institue, NOIDA The Digital Library Toolkit - March 2000, Sun Microsystems, Inc : California An International Research Agenda for Digital libraries: Summary Report of the series of joint NSF-EU working groups on future directions for digital libraries research, October 12, 1998 Edittors : Schauble, Peter and Smeaton, Alan F.

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Chandra R., S.Ravi; Sharma, R. K. Are We Ready for Digital Libraries? In Herald of Library Science, Vol 39 (1-2), jan-April 2000 Chapman, Stephen; Kenney, Anne R. D-Lib Magazine, Oct 1996, Digital Conversion of Research Library materials : A case for full informational capture

Gopal, Krishan,, 2000, l Libraries in Electronic Information Era, Authors Press :Delhi. Granger, Steward, infrastructure Harter, Stephen P., 1997. Scholarly communication and the digital library : Problems and issues, Journal of Digital Information, I(1). Kent Allen, Encylopedia of library and information service.- New York : Marcel Dekker Inc, 1998 vo l. 63, sup l.26 (Ask Verma) Levy, David M. Digital libraries and the problems of purpose, D-Lib Magazine January 2000, 6 (1) Marien Van Der Heijden, 2002, Evaluation Archives of Indian Labour - Digital Archives Project Parry, David, 1998: London: Information North, Virtually New : Creating the digital collection .Prem Singh, 1999. Digital Libraries vs. Conventional Libraries, Library Vision 2010 : Indian Libraries and Librarianship in retrospect and prospect , ILA Seminar Papers 45th All India Library Conference Hisar : 23-26 December 1999, pp.134-150. B. G. Saknure,1999. Digital Libraries vs. Conventional Libraries, Library Vision 2010 : Indian Libraries and Librarianship in retrospect and prospect , ILA Seminar Papers 45th All India Library Conference Hisar : 23-26 December 1999, pp.151-158. D-Lib Magazine Feb 2002, Vol 8(2) Digital preservation and deep

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.Uday Kumar Varma, The Challenges and Prospects of Digital Archiving : The lessons from Digitization Activities of Archives of Indian Labour

V.K. J. Jeevan, 2001. Digitizing of Indian Library Science Journals,University News, 39(34), August 20-26, pp.5-13. Waters, Donald, J. 1998 Council on Library and Information Resources, Issue number 4 July/August ,What are Digital Libraries?

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