A lot of digitisation projects are in progress in different parts of India. But many of these efforts are individual and lack a holistic view. The article stresses the need to have coordinated digitisation activities and a union catalogue of the digitised contents in India

Jose, Sanjo

English

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Union Catalogue of Digitised Documents in India 
 
Sanjo Jose 
Librarian, 
St. Thomas’ College, Thrissur -1 
sanjojose@gmail.com 
 
Abstract 
A lot of digitisation projects are in progress in different parts of India. But many of these 
efforts are individual and lack a holistic view. The article stresses the need to have 
coordinated digitisation activities and a union catalogue of the digitised contents in India. 
 
Keywords: Digitisation, India, Coordination, Union catalogue, archival collection 
 
1. Introduction 
 
Libraries are considered to be the store house of knowledge from the past. Most of the 
collections of the libraries in the past centuries are in print form. Many old libraries 
houses manuscripts in leaves, handmade paper, cloth etc. Past two decades saw the 
emergence of World Wide Web (WWW) and proliferation of digital documents, which 
changed the role of libraries from store houses of books and other documents to 
institutions those provide access to information. 
 
2. Electronic information sources 
 
With the introduction of information and storage technologies, libraries have started to 
use them in providing access to information in electronic databases through different 
media in the forms of magnetic disks like floppy disks and optical disks like CD-ROMs. 
Although the amount of information stored in these media were large compared to the 
conventional sources like print journals, the pace at which they were distributed was 
same as that of printed articles. The electronic disks were to be dispatched through air or 
surface mail to the user institutions or libraries just like the print media. Along with the 
development of communication technologies, the mode of delivery of electronic 
information was revolutionized by Internet and WWW. The electronic databases and 
journals were able to be accessed at the end users desktop personal computers from the 
places of their own origin through high end servers.  
 
3. Online information sources 
 
Most of the information sources like books, journals, periodicals, theses, dissertations etc. 
are composed in the electronic form with the aid of computers today. Since they are born 
digital, it is easy to distribute them in the same form online through WWW. Sometimes 
they are enhanced with multimedia for an improved user experience. They get printed if 
they are intended to be distributed in that format.  
 
 
4. Microreproduction 
 
Before the advent of the above mentioned technologies, libraries store a vast variety of 
documents which were handwritten or printed and distributed as such. Many of them are 
precious with immense value to the mankind in terms of their archeological value and the 
information they possess. They have to be preserved in their present form without much 
wear and tear while using them. In addition to that the information in them should be 
accessible to be those interested in their perusal for studies and research. 
Microreproduction or microphotographic reproduction was introduced to reproduce these 
materials for the use of information in them. Microforms like microfilms and microfiches 
were used to convert the materials in 1920s. But the conversion to these media require 
much cost. These media required space to store and special readers to read them. The 
media themselves were prone to corrosion very soon.  
 
5. Digitisation 
 
Digitisation was suggested to overcome the disadvantages of the above media. 
Digitisation involved the scanning of these materials with digital scanners and conversion 
of the scanned images into user accessible formats. 
 
As briefly explained above, most of the modern information sources are born digital, they 
can be hosted and accessed through communication networks without much additional 
tasks and costs involved. But when it comes to archival materials like manuscripts, old 
and rare books etc. they have to be converted to digital form using much manual efforts, 
time and cost. 
 
Many organizations in different parts of the world like libraries, archives, universities, 
cultural institutions etc. have started digital libraries populated with the digitised 
documents.  India is also not an exception. Many digitisation projects are going on in 
different parts of this large country.  
 
6. Major digitisation projects 
 
Some of the major digitisation projects are listed with brief descriptions. The descriptions 
of the projects are taken from the official sites of the respective projects which are 
mentioned in the paratheses. 
 
6.1 Million Book Project 
The Million Book Project, was a book digitisation project, led by Carnegie Mellon 
University School of Computer Science and University Libraries. Scanning of a million 
books was completed in 2007 and they are available online at the Universal Library 
(http://www.ulib.org/). The project is also associated with Digital Library of India. 
 
 
 
 
6.2 Google Books 
Google Books (https://books.google.com) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the 
full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical 
character recognition, and stored in its digital database.  
 
6.3 Internet Archive 
Open Content Alliance (http://www.opencontentalliance.org) is a consortium of 
organizations like Yahoo!, Internet Archive, University of California, University of 
Toronto and others contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitised 
texts. Scanning for the Open Content Alliance is administered by the Internet Archive, 
which also provides permanent storage and access through its website at 
https://archive.org/details/texts.  
 
7. Scope 
 
The digitisation projects in India which involve conversion of documents are the subjects 
of discussion in this article. It excludes the digital library projects which involve only 
born digital documents and digitisation of theses and dissertations. Theses and 
dissertations are usually confined to the institutions like colleges and universities and the 
availability of their multiple copies are generally scarce, which in turn reduces the 
possibility of the digitization of multiple copies at multiple locations. 
 
8. Digitisation projects in India 
 
8.1 Digital Library of India 
Digital Library of India (http://www.dli.ernet.in/) is a result of collaboration of Million 
Book Project with Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for the 
Government of India and research partners in India like Indian Institute of Science, 
Bangalore, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, ERNET and 22 
major participating centres. The project scanned books in many languages, using optical 
character recognition to enable full text searching, and providing free-to-read access to 
the books on the web. The library is migrating to structured database based on DSpace 
software. At present, the contents of the digital library are hosted in Tiff image format 
which is less user-friendly on web browsers. The quality of metadata is very poor, which 
is evident in the new home page of DLI hosted in DSpace platform. For example some 
author names in DLI are XXXX, xxxx, N.A., N. A. and titles include UNDERSANDING 
TAXES etc. 
 
8.2 Traditional Knowledge Digital Library 
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (http://www.tkdl.res.in/) 
TKDL was set up in 2001 as a collaboration between the Council of Scientific and 
Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, 
Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Department of AYUSH), Ministry of Health & Family 
Welfare, Government of India.  The objective of the library is to protect the ancient and 
traditional knowledge of the country from exploitation through biopiracy and unethical 
patents, by documenting it electronically and classifying it as per international patent 
classification systems. TKDL is a representative database of 1200 Ayurvedic, Unani and 
Siddha formulations. TKDL provides access to 2.50 lakhs medicinal formulations to 
patent offices only under TKDL Access Agreement. 
 
8.3 National Mission for Manuscripts  
The National Mission for Manuscripts, NAMAMI 
(http://www.namami.org/database.htm) was established in February 2003, by the 
Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India. NAMAMI seeks to unearth and 
preserve the vast manuscript wealth of India. India possesses an estimate of five million 
manuscripts, probably the largest collection in the world. These cover a variety of 
themes, textures and aesthetics, scripts, languages, calligraphies, illuminations and 
illustrations. Together, they constitute the ‘memory' of India's history, heritage and 
thought. These manuscripts lie scattered across the country and beyond, in numerous 
institutions as well as private collections, often unattended and undocumented. NAMAMI 
aims to locate, document, preserve these manuscripts and digitise them to make them 
accessible to prospective users. 
 
8.4 Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts 
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (http://ignca.nic.in/rare.htm) prepared a 
descriptive catalogue of the illustrated rare books at its library. Kalasampada: Digital 
Library- Resource for Indian Cultural Heritage (DL-RICH, 
http://www.ignca.nic.in/dgt_0001.htm) is a project by IGNCA. But both the projects lack 
structured database and search facility. 
  
8.5 Panjab Digital Library 
Panjab Digital Library (http://www.panjabdigilib.org) is envisaged to locate, digitise, 
preserve, collect and make accessible the accumulated wisdom of the Panjab region, 
without distinction as to script, language, religion, nationality, or other physical 
condition. The full text of the documents in the library is available online. 
 
8.6 National Library of India 
National Library (http://www.nationallibrary.gov.in/SearchIndexDigital.php) is under the 
Ministry of Culture, Government of India. But the full text of any of the documents is not 
available online in the official website of the Library. 
 
9. Digitisation in Kerala 
 
Four major libraries in Thiruvananthapuram, i.e., Kerala Legislature Library, State 
Central Library, University of Kerala Library, and Oriental Research Institute and 
Manuscripts Library have their own digitisation projects.  
 
9.1 Digital Archive of Kerala Legislative Assembly  
The Digital Archive of Kerala Legislative Assembly 
(http://klaproceedings.niyamasabha.org/) is mainly intended to make the Assembly 
documents accessible online to the general public. The archive encompasses the full texts 
of deliberations of various Legislative Bodies of Kerala since 1888, Bills Passed, Reports 
of Assembly Committees and other Committee/ Commissions and Bulletins Part I & II. 
The documents can be searched and accessed through different options like name of 
legislative body, number of session, date, name of business transacted, name of member 
and subject. Search options are available in both Malayalam and English. 
 
 
9.2 Kerala State Central Library 
Kerala State Central Library (http://statelibrary.kerala.gov.in/digital_archives.html) 
digitise the rare collection of old and precious documents that are not available anywhere 
else.  The digital archive of the library contains Travancore/Travancore-Cochin/Kerala 
gazette from 1903 in addition to other rare documents. The archive has a structured 
database and search facility which is available in both Malayalam and English. 
 
9.3 University of Kerala Library 
University of Kerala Library is also involved digitisation. But no information except a 
single sentence, “The library is currently in the process of digitising its rare collections.” 
in its homepage at http://www.kulib.in/ is available online about its efforts. 
 
9.4 Oriental Research Institute and Manuscripts Library 
Digitisation at Oriental Research Institute and Manuscripts Library in University of 
Kerala is done as part of National Manuscript Mission.  
 
9.5 Kerala Sahitya Akademi 
Online Library of Kerala Sahitya Akademi of digitized books and periodicals in 
Malayalam and English (http://www.keralasahityaakademi.org/online_library/index.html) 
is available. But the catalogue lacks a structured database and search facility. Moreover 
the links given in the website directing to the domain <http://www.dli.ernet.in/> are all 
dead.  
 
10. Suggestions for better digitisation efforts 
 
Process of digitisation involves a lot of manual labour and time for scanning the pages. 
The costs involved in these processes are high. The creation of documents for a digital 
library those are born digital involves very less efforts, time and cost. 
 
10.1 Catalogue of digitised documents 
Considering this very important factor, the libraries and institutions which are involved in 
digitisation activities must provide a catalogue of the digitised documents they posses 
with a minimum metadata like the title, author, date of creation/publication, publisher, 
place of publication, subject or contents, date of scanning etc. This will help other 
libraries in the possession of same document repeating the scanning process, which will 
save a lot of time and effort.  
 
 
 
 
10.2 Coordinated efforts 
 
A coordinated effort should be taken by the libraries or institutions which are digitising 
their collections to avoid duplication of efforts by different libraries digitising same 
documents. A nodal agency should coordinate the whole process, just as Indian Institute 
of Science coordinated the creation of Digital Library of India. 
 
10.3 Union catalogue 
 
A union catalogue of the documents digitised and hosted in libraries and institutions in 
different parts of India, will be helpful for users and other institutions involved in 
digitisation to locate the digitised documents. Search in vernacular languages in which 
the documents are written should be included with the catalogue. Search through 
transliteration also should be integrated. A model which can be made as a reference is 
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/) 
maintained by Library of Congress, United States of America. NUCMC catalogs the 
archival and manuscript collections held by eligible repositories located throughout the 
USA and its territories. 
 
10.4 Full text accessibility 
 
The digitised documents should be available online to make use of them to the maximum. 
Usually there will be no copyright impediments to make these documents online in full 
text, as most of them might have completed the copyright period.  
 
10.5 Full text search 
 
Full text searching within the digitised documents will be a desirable quality for future 
research. For providing this facility the documents should have a reasonable quality of 
optically character recognised text.  
 
11. Conclusion 
 
Coordinated efforts and cooperation among the institutions and libraries will always help 
the users to locate their document easily. By making the availability of the documentary 
heritage of the country over a large network, the next generation will be more aware of 
the depth and breadth of the knowledge our ancestors possessed.  
 
 


Union Catalogue of Digitised Documents in India

http://eprints.rclis.org/29120/1/Digitizationcatalogue.pdf

Union Catalogue of Digitised Documents in India

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