Digital resources are becoming a common medium to address patron and library staff needs. There are a number of means and applications used to satisfy information demands. These include digital reference materials, and the reference persons that provide access to these objects, information and instruction web sites and, multi-media applications and displays. These applications provide a fairly thorough means for meeting the information demands of faculty, staff, and patrons. But there are some information needs relating to complex, implicit, or specialized knowledge that arenâ t readily addressed end-to-end by typical information publishing and knowledge management and instructional methods. This paper uses information theory principles to provide a framework for identifying some of the limitations of current information delivery methods in terms of their relevance to modern library reference and information services. In addition there is an explanation of blog technology, with suggestions for enhancing library information services. Last, some cautions for using blogs is discussed.

This was a presentation made at the Conference of Librarians at Jaipur, India, on 16th September 2007. / Once the internet and digital media took the world by storm, many IT pundits predicted the death of books and libraries, but it has not happened. Library as a physical facility continues to be much valued and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The role of public library as a center for getting knowledge and information, for recreation purposes or as a social institution, remains paramount. Reading habit continues to be the third most popular activity in Indian cities as found in recent surveys. Books provide huge variety of content, for every class of reader. Besides, for academic and recreational reading, print books are supreme. Therefore, books will continue to be the main resource in our libraries though the internet and e-resources need to be integrated into our scheme of things since they have advantages because of quick search and dissemination. Apart from being a handy information resource, Internet is a great tool for various library purposes including remote access to the resources, publicizing library services, speedy communication etc. The range of services delivered by the public libraries will need to differ from place to place in response to the needs of the community and the principle â one size fits allâ will not work. One challenge in the new millennium is how to make our public libraries relevant to the illiterates and the poor which is a staggering population in our country. Timely availability of knowledge and information will make a change in their lives. Public libraries will have to build up locally relevant content in the form of databases and yellow pages since such information is more useful to the community though not available in printed sources. Author suggests that in Rajasthan wherein the public library act was recently enacted, a pilot project could be tried wherein a cluster of village libraries will concentrate more on interactive knowledge sharing programs besides providing locally generated content. Each village library will have a small book collection, mainly for reference, whereas the lending services will be through the mobile libraries coming from the District Central Library. Public libraries also need to explore more ways to earn revenue in the form of rentals for the halls and display areas, sponsorships for library website, charges for internet service, fees for classes and workshops etc. Author calls upon the public librarians to work closer with other agencies in government, universities, private sectors and civil society in order to collaborate with them for holding knowledge sharing programs. The author concludes with an upbeat note about the future of public libraries in India. Indiaâ s National Knowledge Commission has recognized public libraries as powerful agencies of the knowledge economy. The National Planning Commission has agreed to earmark Rs 1000 crores in the XI Plan for the development of libraries and another Rs 1000 crores will be mobilized from public private partnership. These are very positive signs and public libraries should look forward to brighter days in future.

Poster paper. In Chinese. / The paper introduces a general digital resource management system. It elaborates on the core design and components of the system. The general digital resource management system was developed based on the Fedora system, and incorporates the concept of virtual collections. The system is composed of seven models: rights management, collection management, resource access, resource tagging, interoperability, and customization.

Citation for the accompanying article: Dalbello, Marija. (2005). "A Phenomenological Study of an Emergent National Digital Library, Part II: Narratives of Development," The Library Quarterly 75 (4), pp. e28-e70. / This article focuses on the activities surrounding the National Digital Library Program (NDLP) at the Library of Congress (1995-2000) to identify modalities of successful innovation and the characteristics of creative decision making. Theories of social change and organizational rationality, and the social construction of technology (SCOT) approaches provided the theoretical basis for this study. The underlying design for a phenomenological approach is discussed, together with the method for constructing a descriptive narrative that synthesizes the phenomenon under study (an emergent national digital library program). Theory, methodology, data collection, and the summary of findings with implications for practice are presented here. The accompanying article (Part II, dLIST item number 1635) presents the narratives of development, applying the interpretive phenomenological framework to document the innovators' perspectives about this formative event.

Digitization of the resources of the libraries and the information centres has become very essential for preservation as well as better access of the resources. Here an overview has been given about the basic requirements needed to start a digitization project. These include the hardwares and the softwares and some of the important technical issues.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has set-up a â Consortia-based Subscription to Electronic Resources for Technical Education System in Indiaâ on the recommendations made by the Expert Group appointed by the ministry. The consortium is named as the Indian National Digital Library in Science and Technology (INDEST) Consortium. The INDEST Consortium has commenced its operation since Dec., 2002 through its headquarters at the IIT Delhi. The Consortium subscribes to full-text electronic resources and bibliographic databases for 38 leading engineering and technological institutions in India including IITs (7), IISc (1), NITs / RECs (17), IIMs (6) and a few other institutions directly funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). While the expenditure on electronic resources proposed for subscription under the consortium for these 38 institutions are being met from the funds made available by the MHRD, the consortium being an open-ended proposition, welcomes all other institutions to join it on their own for sharing benefits it offers in terms of highly discounted subscription rates and better terms of agreement with the publishers. Moreover, beneficiary institutions may also subscribe to additional electronic resources through the consortium that are not being funded by the MHRD. This article introduces the INDEST Consortium, its activities and services.

The emerging trends in digital(ized) collection development from 1997 are examined using a sample of projects accessible through web-based registries of the Association of Research Libraries and Digital Library Federation. The analysis focuses on thematic repertoire, narrative structuring, underlying historiographic principles, presentation, and the context of institutionalization combining empirical and interpretive approaches, to understand how digital libraries are involved in the production of knowledge and how memory institutions are currently shaping this record in the digital environment. Digital collections are presently showcasing material so far restricted to scholarly uses, making it available for broader educational purposes. Nevertheless, they resemble the sixteenth- and the seventeenth-century cabinets of curiosities in their limited ability to support scholarship or address information needs of defined communities of users. Programmatic statements for developers in conclusion of the study suggest ways for improving the usability of these emerging textual environments, while recognizing new uses for the collections.

This annotated bibliography was commissioned to support the NSDL Evaluation Workshop (planned for October 2003) that will 1) explore the issues around evaluating the impact of digital libraries on education and that will 2) begin developing a strategy to evaluate the impact of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) on STEM education. The bibliographyâ s purpose, then, is to identify research to date on evaluating the impact of digital libraries on learning and teaching. It contains a Summary & Analysis section, which defines terms, makes observations about the literature, reviews the resources included, highlights issues, and suggests areas for further consideration. The Annotated Bibliography is organized alphabetically. Details about each resource include: a citation; the abstract provided with each resource; a summary, if necessary, to highlight relevant ideas not expressed in the abstract; and, a comment section with a short analysis of the resource. The annotations are followed by a description of the Methodology used to compile this document.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the displays and exhibitions in university libraries. It was conducted by questionnaire survey on six theses: Frequency and purpose, Staffing, Funding, Space and safeguards, Subjects, materials and sources, and Marketing. The results reveal that most libraries held displays and exhibitions and thought displays and exhibitions as marketing and educational ser-vices to patrons. But supporting resources such as staffing, funding, space, security, and facilities were informal and scant. To improve the displays and exhibitions, this paper suggests that libraries should pay more resources and concerns on displays and exhibitions to achieve the marketing and educational goal. Besides, librarians play important roles in displays and exhibitions. To plan a professional and successful displays and exhibitions, librarians need more support on training, display knowledge and credits.

This is a presentation from the ULA Conference on Knowledge for Development, Colombo, June 2007. Rural poor people particularly in developing countries do not get the knowledge and information which they need for their day to day living. Yet, there are no mechanisms for making this knowledge available. This marginalized sector includes small farmers, fishermen, micro-entrepreneurs, small businessmen, unemployed youth etc. They need information for day to day life, such as daily weather forecast, market prices of agricultural produce, how to treat a crop disease, where to get application for the policemenâ s vacancies, addresses of local masonry persons, etc. Local content is what is most important. Many times, such information is available freely, but the needy person does not get it because of lack of awareness. Such information has to be collected on daily basis from the right sources such as agricultural departments, meteorology offices, bank branches, primary health centers or wholesale markets. The information has to be disseminated through the fastest media such as Internet, community radio, loudspeakers, community newspapers or interactive meetings. Higher education libraries need to work closely with the various agencies, both in government and private sectors and the civil society in order to find out the knowledge requirements of the poor and research into how to package it and deliver efficiently. The paper gives examples of successful knowledge initiatives for the poor in five countries : Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, and Malawi.