Digital Library

By Dr. Jagdish Arora | Former Director, Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre, Gandhinagar

Learners enrolled: 1352

Objectives

The objective of the course is to impart in-depth knowledge on digital libraries, their characteristics, components, standards and protocols, IPR and legal issues, digital rights and access management, planning and evaluation. The ultimate aim of the course is to instil skills in learners that would enable them to evaluate commercially available digital libraries before subscribing them for their institutions as well as to set-up their own institutional digital library with all intermediate steps involved in it from planning to offering digital library services.

Course Coverage

The course imparts in-depth knowledge on digital libraries, their characteristics and major components. The course elaborates on technology, processes and steps involved in digitization and digital preservation. It enunciates on applications and services offered by digital library and its relationship with the semantic web. It delves into the process of planning, implementation, marketing, promotion and evaluation of digital libraries. Learners would have insights into various aspects of digital rights and access management and its applications in digital libraries. The course also elaborates on examples of open access digital libraries and backend technologies used. It imparts knowledge on major digital library projects and initiatives taken all over the world including USA, UK, India and rest of the world. Lastly, the course elaborates on case studies on setting-up digital library using open source institutional repository software, i.e. Eprints, DSpace and GSDL.

Target Learners

The course is designed for the students of library and information science as well as for professionals working in library and information centres. Other learners interested in digital libraries my also take up the course.

Pre-requisite

The learner should have basic knowledge of computers, acquaintance with traditional libraries using manual processes as well as computerised library operations and services offered by both types of libraries.

Timeline- Duration

The course consists of 15 parts and is deliverable in a time span of 15 weeks as per the course layout is given below.

Indicative Program Alignments :

M.Sc. M.Lib.Sc.

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	15 weeks
Category :	Library and Information Sciences
Credit Points :	5
Level :	Postgraduate
Start Date :	14 Jul 2025
End Date :	31 Oct 2025
Enrollment Ends :	31 Aug 2025
Exam Date :	13 Dec 2025 IST
NCrF Level	6.0
SHIFT :	II

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Digital Library: Overview - Introduction, Historical Perspectives.

Week 2: Major Components of Digital Library - 1: Major Components, Search and Browse Interface in Digital Library.

Week 3: Major Components of Digital Library – 2: Digital Library Technical Infrastructure, Digital Library Architecture.

Week 4: Major Components of Digital Library – 3: Collection Development of digital library, Knowledge Organization in Digital Library.

Week 5: Digital Libraries: Planning, Implementation, Marketing and Promotion.

Week 6: Digital Library: Standards, IPR and Legal Issues.

Week 7: Major Projects in Digital Libraries - Major Project: US, Major Project: UK, Major Project: Rest of the World.

Week 8: Digital Library Initiatives in India.

Week 9: Open Access and Digital Library.

Week 10: Digitization Part – 1 and Part – 2

Week 11: Digital Library and Semantic Web, Digital Library Applications and Services.

Week 12: Digital Rights Management / Access Management Part - 1 and Part - 2

Week 13: Digital Preservation: Part – 1 and Part - 2

Week 14: Case Studies in Digital Library: Dspace, GSDL and Eprints.

Week 15: Evaluation and Case Studies of Digital Library.

Books and references

BOOKS:

Bosworth, Edward L. Textbook for design and architecture of digital computers: An introduction (CPSC 5155). Bosworth, 2011.
Carroll, ed. Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium. Boston: ACM Press, 457-474
Borman, C (2000). From Gutenberg to the global information infrastructure: access to information in the networked world. New York: ACM Press. Lee, S. D. (2000). Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook. London: Library Association Publishing.
Chowdhury, G. G., & Chowdhury, S. (2007). Organising Information: from the shelf to the web (1 edition). London: Facet Publishing.
Soergel, D. (2009). Digital Libraries and Knowledge Organisation. In S. R. Kruk & B. McDaniel (Eds.), Semantic Digital Libraries (pp. 9–39). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-85434-0_2
Paskin, N. (2014). Digital Object Identifier (DOI®) System. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition (pp. 1586–1592). Taylor & Francis. Retrieved Digital Library 2 116 from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044418
Tedd, Lucy A., and Large, Andrew (2005). Digital Libraries: Principles and Practice in a Global Environment: K G Saur
Andrews, Judith and Law, Dereck (2004) Digital Libraries: policy, planning and practice: Ashgate
Smith, Kelvin (2007). Planning and implementing electronic records management: A practical guide: Facet Publishing
Smith, Abbey (2001). Strategies for Building Digitised Collections. Washington, D.C. Digital Library Federation, Council on Library and Information Resources.
P. Suber (2004). "A very brief introduction to open access,"
Madalli, Devika P. (2003). Digital Libraries and Digital Library Initiatives, Digital Libraries: Theory and Practice, DRTC, Bangalore.

REFERENCES:[PLEASE REFER TO THE LIST OF REFERENCES WHICH ARE AVAILABLE IN THE E-TEXT DOCUMENT UNDER EACH WEEKLY TOPIC]

Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C. and Komlodi, A. Interfaces and tools for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. Information Processing and Management, 34(5), 535-555, 1998.
Oppenheim, C. and Smithson, D. What is the hybrid library? Journal of Information Science, 25(2), 97-112, 1999.
Waters, D. Electronic technologies and preservation. European Research Libraries Cooperation, 2(3), 285-293, 1992.
Chepesuik, R. The future is here: America's libraries go digital. American Libraries, 2(1), 47-49, 1997.
Cox, John E. (1997). Publishers, publishing and the Internet: how journal publishing will survive and prosper in the electronic age. Electronic Library, 15(2), 125-131.

Instructor bio

Dr. Jagdish Arora

Former Director, Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre, Gandhinagar

Dr. Jagdish Arora was the Former Director of Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre from August, 2007 to Dec. 2018. He worked as the Librarian and Deputy Librarian at the IIT Delhi from Sept. 2003 to August 2007 and from March 1991 to June 2002 respectively. He was Librarian at IIT Bombay from June, 2002 to August, 2003. He was the National Coordinator of the INDEST-AICTE Consortium (2002 – 2007), Chief Coordinator of UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium (2007-2015) and National Coordinator of e-Shodh Sindhu, the national consortium formed with merger of INDEST-AICTE Consortium, UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium and N-LIST (2016-2018). Dr. Arora is currently working as Advisor at the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), New Delhi.

Dr. Arora is recipient of Fulbright Professional Fellowship in Library and Information Science (1997-98), SIS Fellow (1999), Young Librarian of the Year (2001, SATKAL), Librarian of the Year (IASLIC, 1999); ILA-Kuala Best Librarian Award (2004); and Master Motilal Sanghi Best Librarian Award (2009). He delivered 7th Dr. S.R. Ranganathan Memorial Lecture organized by Delhi Library Association in 2009, 10th Prof. K. A. Isaac Commemoration Annual Lecture in 2015 organized by the Kerala Library Association, Trivandrum, and 31st Sarada Ranganathan Endowment Lecture 2016 (Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science (SRELS) and Ranganathan Centre for Information Studies). He was awarded “SATKAL Life Time Achievement Award” for the year 2011 by SATKAL, a Punjab-based Organization and DLA Professional Excellence Award-2015 by the Delhi Library Association (DLA).

Dr. Arora was awarded a citation and memento for his commendable contribution to digital initiatives for higher education. The award was presented to him by the Honourable Shri Pranab Mukherjee, the then President of India, during the National Convention on Digital Initiatives, organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Govt. of India on 9th July 2017 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. Dr. Arora was recipient of NDLTD Leadership Award for the year 2017 for Shodhganga Scheme of the INFLIBNET Centre. He was recipient of the Librarian’s Choice Award for Life Time Achievement in Recognition of Individual Contribution towards Library and Library Science Community of India (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017). He was given Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service in Library and Information Science in 2018 during International Conference at NLU in 2018.

Dr. Arora was the Principal Investigator for several projects sponsored by agencies like AICTE, Deptt. of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Information Technology (MIT), Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the National Highway Authority of India, University Grants Commission and National Board of Accreditation (NBA).

Dr. Arora has more than 100 research articles to his credit that were published in learned research journals and as chapters in books and conference proceedings. He has presented research papers in several national and international conferences and symposia in India and abroad. He has authored more than 50 e-learning material / lessons for e-PG Pathshala and CEC (in multi-media format), and other open universities.

His current research interests includes consortia-based subscription to e-resources, digital libraries, digitization of old and fragile documents and their storage, database-driven Web interfaces and Web-based library services, Web-based learning and education, access management technologies, scientometric analysis, etc.

Course certificate

The course is free to learn. Interested Learners can enroll and learn the course for free.

If You wish to get certified on this course you must register and write the proctored exam after payment of exam fee.
The exam is conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) in various exam centers across India.
30 Marks will be allocated for Internal Assessment (assignment/ discussion forum/ activity) and 70 Marks will be allocated for external proctored examination.
Please take note of the following eligibility criteria if you are pursuing this course for certification or credit transfer: For SWAYAM Exam (conducted by NTA): A minimum of 40% Marks in Internal Assessments is required to be eligible for the SWAYAM Certificate. The Best/Top five scores from the weekly MCQ Assessment will be considered while calculating your final internal assessment marks. For University-Conducted Exam: You must complete at least 75% of the Internal Assessments to qualify for the university’s end-term examination.

Exam pattern:
Computer Based Test (CBT)
50 MCQs

Examination Date & Shift:
13-Dec-2025
Shift - II

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