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May 12, 2021

Review: “National Digital Library of India: An Overview” by Bisma Bashir, Nahida Nasreen, and Fayaz Ahmad Loan

Author: Shreya Das

Citation: Bashir, Bisma; Nasreen, Nahida; and Loan, Fayaz Ahmad, “National Digital Library of India: An Overview” (2019). Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 2601. <https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2601>

Introduction: 

In the article titled as “National Digital Library of India: An Overview”, the writers provide an overview of the National Digital Library of India (NDL India) to understand its advantages, features, and collection in the global digital space. The writers highlight that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) established the NDL India to bring learning resources with a single window search facility for learners so that it reduces the consumption of time on searching research materials/ reading materials on various platforms. The text also sheds light on the enormous reading materials available in several languages. The text piece focuses on the technical functioning of the NDL India and the resources available on the website, followed by salient features and issues of the NDL India.

Service Architecture of NDL India: 

The text provides a detailed description of the structures of NDL India. As appears from the text, NDL India- one of the largest digital libraries, functions in a three-layered systematic manner, and avails filtered and federated searches to enable the users to find right kind of information with least efforts. The text also elaborates on the vast varieties of materials available on the portal.

Whereas there is no denial that accumulating a huge number of literature and availing the same on a same platform is a commendable job, done by MHRD, a practical experience on the website is not exceptionally smooth.  The excessive sub-division of all options available has made the website confusing and complicating. The main objective of the NDL India is to help learners/students to access materials across globe but accessibility of lot of good materials are restricted. Most of the materials which are available on the website are anyway freely accessible on internet. It is correct that accumulating all the materials under a single window platform does reduce the research time consumption, but the website itself seems not so user friendly which again lead to unnecessary time investment.  

Salient Features: 

As mentioned in the text, some of the salient features of NDL India are that the website is interactive and participative and provides a customized service in a 24×7 integrated environment where users can find out the right resource with the slightest effort and in minimum time. As noted from the text, NDL India combines contents from different Indian digital repositories, and functions mostly on metadata. Since the website functions on metadata and acts more like a search engine, all the results include wide range of resources which makes it difficult for users to reach to the most relevant material. Whereas NDL India does provide different ways to browse content like browse by content type, browse by source, browse by subject, browse by learning resource type, etc., but excessive sub-division of all options make the experience unpleasant.

Issues of the NDL India: 

The text further discusses some of the issues pertaining to NDL India. For instance, the text highlights the issues faced by the users while accessing materials which are restricted. The lack of sense of responsibility or ownership of NDL India is also can be understood from the fact that NDL India does not take any accountability for validity, relevance, inclusiveness, reliability, and suitability of the contents.  The text also discusses the importance of adopting advanced software, newer technologies to keep the functioning of the website smooth.  The writers correctly point-out, “The sources available in today’s technology can’t be used with tomorrow’s technology.” In a time like this when technology is an important part of our daily life, libraries (including NDL India) must invest in more technologies, to keep the website update and user friendly. From the earlier part of the article, we can understand that in one hand the NDL India aims to provide 24×7 integrated service to its user, but on the other hand the NDL India takes no responsibility of the portal being unavailable due to technical issues.

Conclusion: 

While the text does provide an overview of the NDL India as the title of the article suggests, the readers may leave with some unanswered questions. The article does not provide or recommend the solutions to the issues raised. All these issues are matter of concern and for the better accessibility of resources, MHRD should provide more financial support to NDL India. From technical advancement to availability of restricted materials – MHRD needs to focus on all of these.  

Disclaimer: Views, opinions, interpretations are solely those of the author, not of the firm (ALG India Law Offices LLP) nor reflective thereof. Author submissions are not checked for plagiarism or any other aspect before being posted.

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