IIT-Kharagpur has created a state-of-art National Digital Library (NDLI) for students that consists of all subjects. The library consists of 1.7 crore content for students to avail the priceless facility for academic knowledge. 

Access the digital library here.

The library would act as a virtual repository of learning resources providing services for the learner community. NDLI majorly consists of diverse resources such as books, audio books along with important video lectures and presentations. Students will be able to access lecture notes as well as necessary question papers and solutions. All the educational resources range from primary to postgraduate levels. 

To make the user interface easier, the content is made available supporting the ten most widely used Indian languages integrated from the digital repositories of various educational and research institutes in India. 

The NDLI project was sponsored by National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), receiving funds from the Ministry of Education, Government of India. IIT-Kharagpur claims that the project aims at making resources available to the learners community through a single-window. 

The blog reads, “NDLI is built to provide support for all academic levels for researchers, life-long learners of all disciplines, popular forms of access devices and differently-abled learners. It is designed to enable people to learn from best practices, also facilitating researchers to perform inter-linked exploration from multiple sources.”

Digital libraries in other institutions

The Central Library at IIT-Madras offers bibliographic and full text digital resources to support the scholarly needs of the institution. It consists of e-books, digital resources, journals, and online databases in engineering, sciences, humanities, technology, and management. 

Check out the digital library here. 

Another such digital library is the Delhi University Library System (DULS) that makes over 37 libraries, addressing students in the virtual academic community. Students, research scholars, and teachers can access content stored in 63 high-quality electronic databases with the help of campus networks. 

However, so far, the open access to other students is still not available at DULS. 

Visit DULS here.  

At the state level as well, the government has been trying to digitise libraries. 

State governments’ move to boost digital libraries

Around 152 virtual reality devices worth INR 65.54 lakh were introduced in 76 libraries across the state of Tamil Nadu last week. The state government announced that the move aimed to provide children with an enhanced reading experience deploying useful resources. 

The directorate of public libraries has additionally planned to provide internet to offline libraries, along with introducing digital library facilities. 

In September, Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana announced that over 4,000 digital libraries would be established in Andhra Pradesh, where each secretariat in a village would be equipped with a digital library.

Moreover, the Rajasthan Government has approved a budget of INR 36.56 crore to set up digital libraries in around 344 residential schools. The budget was approved by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in the announcement made during the discussion of the Finance and Appropriation Bill 2022–23.