NDLI to provide JK students online access to 1.5 cr learning

The Jammu and Kashmir's Department of Libraries and Research today rolled out an initiative of linking up with National Digital Libraries of India (NDLI) to provide free access to the state's students and academicians to around 1.5 crore downloadable e-books and journals.
The initiative was launched on the sidelines of a workshop on 'Digitised Libraries' organised by the Department of Libraries and Research here today.
The workshop was inaugurated by the Minister of State for Education, Priya Sethi.
National Digital Libraries of India is an online repository of the e-books under the aegis of Union Human Resource Development Ministry. It has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.

The repository hosts content in multiple languages on multiple subject domains including technology, science, humanities, agriculture and others with educational material available from primary to PhD level.
The learning resources include e-books, journals, articles, thesis, manuscripts, audio and video lectures.

To integrate J&K's libraries with the online repository of National Digital Libraries of India, the state's Libraries Department has already launched a massive digitisation programme under which all the libraries in the state are going to be digitised in a phased manner.
The National Digital Libraries of India will be also imparting training to the staff of the Libraries Department in J&K regarding the use of online services.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Workshop, Priya Sethi said that in the age of Internet, massive changes are occurring in life and it has become necessary to adopt and take benefit from new technological inventions and digital interventions.
She said the initiative will help the students get online access to the best possible educational resources within and outside the country.
"Once our libraries are fully digitised, joining hands with NDLI will contribute a lot in facilitating the teaching- learning process and the research work," she said.
Speaking on the occasion, Director Libraries, Mukhtar- ul- Aziz said the department has computerised all District and some Tehsil-level libraries in the state so far and is in the process to make all state libraries fully digitised in a more user-friendly way.