National Digital Library of India
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Type of site | Education |
|---|---|
| Available in | 12 Search Languages languages |
| Headquarters | IIT Kharagpur, WB, India, , |
| Country of origin | India |
| Key people | Dr. B. Sutradhar, Jt. PI of NDLI, Librarian of Central Library, IIT Kharagpur |
| Employees | >92 (January 2023) |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Free |
| Users |  87,09,389+ (July 2024) |
| Current status | Active |
Content license | CC0 |
The National Digital library of India is a virtual repository of learning resources which also provides services including textbooks, articles, videos, audiobooks, lectures, simulations, fiction, and all other kinds of learning media for the learners/user community. It is a project under Ministry of Education, Government of India, through its National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT). The objective is to collect and collate metadata and provide full text index from several national and international digital libraries, as well as other relevant sources. The NDLI provides free of cost access to many books and designed to hold content of any languages and provides search support for 12 most widely used Indian languages. It is developed, operated and maintained by the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.[1]
NDLI offers access to educational materials across various disciplines and academic levels. NDLI aggregates content from numerous national and international sources, including books, articles, theses, audio-video lectures, and OERs. The platform supports multiple languages, catering to the diverse linguistic landscape of India, and ensures resources are available from primary school to post-graduate levels and beyond. Built using open architecture, open-source software & open metadata, NDLI currently provides access to more than 100 million contents, in 39 Indian languages, out of 423 languages in total.
History and timeline
Genesis:
The development of a digital library portal was initiated as a Pilot project (NDLI Ph-I) in April 2015. NDLI Ph-I lasted till 30th September 2017. The initial duration of Ph-II was from 1st October 2017 to 31st March 2020 but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this phase was extended till 31st March 2021. Ministry of Education, Govt. of India initiated the Ph-III of the project, and its duration is from 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2026.[2][3][4]
With the primary aim to integrate significant Indian digital and non-digital libraries through a single-window platform, ensuring accessibility to educational resources for every demographic the library was dedicated to the nation on June 19, 2018, by the Union Human Resource Minister Prakash Javadekar.[5]
2014-2017: Establishment and Growth
The digital library portal's development began as a pilot project (NDLI Ph-I) in April 2015. By 2016, the beta version of the portal went live. This period is marked for aggregating content and establishing partnerships with numerous institutions across India, including central libraries of various universities, public libraries, and other educational institutions. The portal quickly expanded its repository and incorporated tools to facilitate access and usability, including multilingual support.
2017-2020: Phase Two and Official Launch
The official launch of the NDLI platform occurred on 19 June 2018, aiming to democratize access to knowledge for over 50 million students across India. By 2019, NDLI had aggregated over 30 million items in more than 70 languages, covering subjects such as literature, science, mathematics, engineering, and medicine. This period is marked for expanding its reach and integrating advanced technological features to enhance user experience. A new and more user-friendly UI was launched to make it accessible on various devices, promoting wider use in both urban and rural areas. By that time NDLI also enhanced its capabilities in handling and preserving Indigenous content, including rare manuscripts and folk literature, thus contributing to the preservation of cultural heritage.[citation needed]
NDLI's Response to the COVID-19 Lockdown
As hundreds of schools, colleges, and universities across India went into complete lockdown on 25th March 2020, NDLI had to adapt quickly, evolving from a ‘data-focused’ approach to one centered on ‘agility and service.’ This required significant efforts in classifying content into user-targeted services, resulting in the first major overhaul of the site since its inception.[citation needed]
2021- 2026: Phase Three
Phase Two of the NDLI project was approved for the period from 2017 to 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project timeline was extended. In 2021, the Ministry of Education, Government of India, extended the NDLI project until 2026. As normal activities gradually resumed post-pandemic, a major overhaul of NDLI was implemented to further enhance its capabilities and reach.
Launch of NDLI 3.0: A New Era of Digital Learning
On 22 April 2024, the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) launched its 3.0 version. NDLI 3.0 is framed to drive a more personalized user experience through an enhanced interface.[citation needed]
Focus on Education
NDLI currently houses content from 23 state boards and national boards like CBSE and NCERT. The range of content includes school, college, and university-level topics, as well as material for 21st-century skills such as digital literacy, language and communication, and scientific temper. These resources are available in text, video, audiobook, presentations, and simulations in multiple Indian languages, aligning NDLI’s objectives with the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.[citation needed]
Educational Resources: NDLI offers a large collection of books, tutorials, question papers, audio and video lectures, e-books, and virtual labs specifically grouped for board preparations.
Research and Scholarly Content: The library has a collection of articles, newspaper archives, journals, and research papers from institutes and research bodies in India and abroad.
Competitive Exam Preparation:
Services
NDLI Club
Like other digital libraries worldwide, NDLI faces the challenge of disseminating, popularizing, and increasing user awareness of its platform. To address this, several initiatives have been undertaken with the assistance of the Government of India. Among these, the establishment of the NDLI Club in 2021 stands out as particularly innovative.[6]
In 2020, the Indian government launched the National Education Policy (NEP 2020), and NDLI seized that opportunity to promote the platform and help educational institutions adopt key recommendations outlined in NEP 2020. One such recommendation is the establishment of topic-centered and project-based clubs designed to nurture students' interests and talents through supplementary enrichment material, guidance, and support.
Recognizing the limitations of physical clubs—such as the need for space, manpower, and recurring costs—NDLI launched the NDLI Club in March 2021. This digital initiative provides a platform for institutions to establish activity-based clubs where students can engage in various learning activities using content from the NDLI repository. The NDLI Club platform enables institutions to create events, upload reports, maintain event logs, automatically generate certificates, and build networks to exchange resources.[citation needed]
As of July 2024, over 5,800 institutions have established clubs using the NDLI Club platform, bringing together nearly 1.7 million members from different regions of India. The primary objective of the NDLI Club is to promote NDLI awareness among students and teachers through activity-based learning, offering NDLI as a valuable resource and service.[citation needed]
Institutional Digital Repository (IDR)
The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) has been instrumental in providing Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) services to academic institutions across India. To date, NDLI has facilitated the establishment of more than 150 IDRs,[7] significantly enhancing the digital infrastructure of these institutions. These repositories serve as centralized platforms for storing, preserving, and providing access to a wide array of scholarly works, including research papers, theses, dissertations, and reports.
Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)
NDLI set up its own Digital Preservation Centre at Salt Lake in 2019.[8] Initially, the contents of "Presidency Alumni Association" were digitized there and integrated into NDLI. This features some contents like:
The Presidency College Register consists of a list of graduates from 1858-1925.
Oaten on Netaji - Poem by the Professor of History on Subhas Chandra Bose.
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, one of the first Graduates of Presidency College, marked absent in the attendance record of the class of 1858-59.
Volumes of the journal by the alumni, "Autumn Annual", edited by Late Nabanita Deb Sen.
After that, the issues of the Bengali science journal "Jnan O Bijnan" were digitized. Bangiya Bijnan Parishad is a science organization founded by Satyendra Nath Bose in 1948. Since inception, Bangiya Bijnan Parishad publishes a monthly journal of popular science in Bengali, called “Jnan O Bijnan”. NDLI is currently hosting all the issues of the science magazine from 1948 to 2020.[citation needed]
A Bengali translation of "Srimadbhagabad gita", contributed by Udbodhan Karyalaya has been integrated.
Access and restrictions
User registration is open to users from around the world. However, contents from some popular sources are only accessible to registered users. Some of these registration-only works are from sources such as:
- World eBook Library
- OECD iLibrary
- Satyajit Ray Society
Management
The library is managed by Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
See also
- Digital Library of India
- Traditional Knowledge Digital Library
- Panjab Digital Library
- Open access in India
References
- ^ "National Digital Library of India". ndl.iitkgp.ac.in. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
- ^ "National Digital Library of India". www.ndl.gov.in. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
- ^ Business Standard, "National Digital Library up in pilot stage", 25 May 2016.
- ^ "MHRD Digital Library Press Release" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 February 2017.
- ^ "Union HRD Minister dedicates the National Digital Library of India to the Nation | Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development". mhrd.gov.in. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
- ^ "NDLI Club – Welcome to National Digital Library of India Project Website". Retrieved 30 July 2024.
- ^ "IDR – Welcome to National Digital Library of India Project Website". Retrieved 30 July 2024.
- ^ "NDLI: Digital Preservation Centre". www.ndl.gov.in. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
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