The first National Digital Library of India, North East Regional Centre (NDLI-NERC) was inaugurated at IIT Guwahati during the sixth meet of all IIT librarians recently. As the first regional centre for the National Digital Library of India, IIT Guwahati will aid all the schools, colleges, academic institutions, professionals, specially-able students and all other learners in the region to integrate with and gain free access to quality education.
The National Digital Library of India (NDL India) is a National Mission Project in education developed by IIT Kharagpur under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development as a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single window search facility for learners of all ages and disciplines.
NDL India employs filtered and federated search to facilitate focused searching so that the learners can find out right resources with least effort and in minimum time. The platform, launched in 2016, is currently available as a free website as well as a mobile app.
Prof Mihir Kanti Chaudhuri, former VC of Tezpur University and currently Advisor, Education Department, Government of Assam attended the inaugural ceremony as the guest of honour. He explained the advantages and disadvantages a digital library could face – from the lack of electricity in remote corners of the country to an initial inertia in recognising what a digital library can provide.
“IIT Guwahati needs to popularise the National Digital Library of India so it can benefit all stakeholders,” he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof Partha Pratim Das, Joint Principal Investigator, NDLI said “The new centre will help in the integration of regional content from the north-eastern states within NDLI.”
Among other eminent speakers were distinguished academics from IIT Guwahati and eminent librarians from across the country including Dr B Sutradhar, librarian, IIT Kharagpur and Professor Gautam Biswas, Director of IIT Guwahati. Six schools were invited to participate and interact with members of Team NDLI, an event where they learnt the multi-modal, multi-lingual and multi-disciplinary learning opportunities that NDLI offers.
The library currently houses over 1.6 crore contents in over 200 languages from 148 premier institutes and boasts of over 30 lakh users.
With NDLI-NERC now a part in the spread of digital education in the North East, the NDLI is one step closer to its vision of democratising education where any learner from any corner of the country can easily gain access to quality resources and ‘Learn Share Grow’.
