Digital Library Practices & Information Technology Application

for Knowledge Management

(Nov 20, 2010  – Jan 05, 2011)

FINAL REPORT

The inaugural session of international DL&KM 2010-11 under the ITEC/Colombo Plan of Govt. of India took place at conference hall of Fluid Control Research Institute, Palakkad at 10 am of 22 Nov ,2010. Mr. K.I. Raphael , Deputy Director delivered the welcome address. The exclusive training program for foreign nationals was opened by FCRI Director   Commodore S. Saseendran. and it was followed by the short speeches of FCRI Officials- Dr. M. Viswanathan, Sr. Deputy Director and Mr. Suresh kumar, Course Coordinator. One of the striking features of this international digital library & Knowledge management training for foreign nationals is the diversity of the attendees and DL&KM '09-10 was no exception. The institutional affiliations of the participants included Govt. organizations, museums, Universities, woman universities, technical universities, national libraries, world trade organization and  ministry of education etc., and of course academia—from departments of computer science, library science, linguistic science, and other related fields. This year course featured geographic diversity as well, including participants from 20 countries.

The digital revolution has already made possible great improvements in library and information services, and library and Information professionals have also played a vital role in improving information management in the broadest sense in their institutions and their sectors of activity. Increasingly students, faculty members, researchers and the general public, expect everything to be available on the web immediately, permanently and preferably free of charge at the point of use. At a cross-cultural level libraries, museums and archives work together to a growing extent, to make their digital collections and objects available on the web for a large audience, very often through one central access point, a so called portal or digital library.

This course not only recognized and accepted the achievement of ICT advancements, but also addressed the challenges and difficulties which library professional community faces: copyright, standards, and obstacles to develop a digital information system for their user community.

The course was very much appreciated for the interesting lecture and hands on sessions, as well as for the extremely successful organization of Classes and study tours with outstanding work of TEAM FCRI.

The course ventured over the whole digital information chain, from installation of automation/digital library software, development of digital libraries, through the data base creation, information retrieval, web technologies, internet resources, and on to the provision of access through electronic document delivery to the user community.

We, the course organizers included so many social programmes, cultural programmes and special dinners for attendees during the course period. The special cultural evenings with traditional dance programmes and subsequent dinners were a spectacular feast for both eyes and stomach of participants. The study tours to various institutional libraries across South India to see the digital infrastructure and other facilities and sight seeing trips were offered to all participants in all week ends to different near and far away places like Calicut, Cochin, Trivandrum, Kanyakumari, Kovalam, Nelliyampathy , Mysore, Coorg, Bangalore and Ooty. This year participants also got a special chance to attend a National Seminar on Intellectual Property and Digital Rights Management Jointly conducted by National Institute of Technology, Calicut and Science and Technology dept. of Govt.  of Kerala.

The entire course programme was split up into  three major categories such as training on two library automation software packages , training of three Digital library software tools including one repository software (D Space) and web and internet technologies for library applications.

The first week induction programmes started with the classes of Dr. Veeraraghavan, a former senior official of SITARC, Coimbatore, which allowed the participants to introduce themselves and familiarized with other participants, know  more about Indian culture, traditions, customs etc . The soft skill classes on personality development, attitude, spoken English etc were facilitated by eminent soft skill trainers Mrs. Archana, Mrs. Elsa, Mr. Rajan and Dr. Jayaraman.

The second week training was started with an Ice braking session by Suresh kumar        (Library and Information Officer of FCRI and the course coordinator of this course ). It allowed the participants to discuss in detail about their digital library expectations, objectives, requirements and problems such as multilingual access etc. This session allowed the course coordinator to create an agenda or a frame work to design the course content and fix the guest faculties to satisfy the digital library needs of participants. Fairly soon it was decided that the focus of this training would be on perceptions and expectations of participants on cross domain and multilingual access to Digital Collections of libraries, museums and archives digital resources. To get a strong focus on the user perspective (a topic that had not been in the course syllabus spotlight that much) and to be able to move away from the designed curriculum by adding new topics/trainers. The second week classes were facilitated by the course coordinator on the subject areas library automation requirements, features of WINISIS software, software installation database design, data retrieval etc

The 3^rd week sessions were taken by Mr. Vimal kumar, M.G University, Kottyam and Mr. Muthukumar Sr. Research Engineer, FCRI. The hands on Lab sessions were about complete training on the library automation package KOHA and Greenstone Digital Library software installation, collection building etc.

The fourth week was dedicated for GENISIS Digital Library software training. The hands on lab sessions on installation was facilitated by course coordinator suresh kumar and hands on training on collection development, information retrieval, customization of web interface etc were facilitated by the US Fullbright scholar Mr. Sainul Abideen , IISER, Trivandrum. 

The week 5 sessions were about D Space Digital Repository Software , its installation, collection Building, data retrieval and customization of web interface etc and was facilitated by Computer Science engineer turned Library  professional Mr. Thomas Abraham, Kollam.

The week 6 sessions were about emotional intelligence, Knowledge Management, Greenstone Digital Library software collection Development, Data retrieval and customization of web interface etc. Emotional intelligence classes were facilitated by commodore Vijaya kumar,(Trainer and consultant), Pune and Greenstone , KM classes were facilitated by Mr. Muthukumar.Sr.Research Engineer, FCRI.

I take this opportunity to extend sincere thanks on behalf of Fluid Control Research Institute and on my personal behalf as course coordinator to all participants for their whole hearted cooperation and patience to make this training program a great success.  I am also very much grateful to the Director of FCRI and  my Reporting Officer Shri. K.I. Raphael, Deputy Director, Dr. M.Viswanathan, Sr. Deputy Director for their valuable guidance, co-operation and timely help. I also express my sincere thanks to Mr. Muthukumar ,Sr. Res. Engineer of FCRI for his contributions to make this training a great success. My dear members of TEAM FCRI, without all your kindness, friendship and in many cases technical /physical assistance, this training could not have been completed so smoothly and hence I extend sincere thanks to all of you.

Even though,  I would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their generous assistance.

Mr. Shibin and Mrs. Sharmila of FCRI computer department for their availability and contributions in training hall right from morning 8’o clock to 8 pm in the evening  every day without any fail and complaints. I salute these young professionals for their dedication and integrity to their duty. I wish them a great success in their professional and personal life. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Haridas, Narayana swamy of P& A department and Mr. Kumar and his team of Guest House for their sincere effort and hard work to make this training a great success without any complaints.  

I would also express my sincere thanks to all Guest faculties for their kind cooperation.
 I’m sure there are some I may have missed, but they are no less appreciated! Many thanks to all! Each and every one.

Suresh kumar

Course coordinator

DL&KM