DIGITAL LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN

THE CONTEXT OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

ANIL KUMAR MISHRA

LIO, NCHRC, NIHFW
NEW DELHI
EMAIL ID: ANILMLIS@GMAIL.COM
BLOG: HTTP://ANILKMISHRA.BLOGSPOT.COM
Abstract of the Article
 Digital library management system is a software system that provides
preservation, organization and dissemination services for digital
collections. Greenstone and Dspace are widely used software systems for
digital libraries. The Present article discusses about the digital library. The
rapid changes in digital library developments are pervasive. The Open
Source based software development model provides industry, government,
and academia with significant opportunities to leverage. This paper deals
with the concept of Open Source Software. It gives advantages of digital
library. It explains the Role of OSS in learning and teaching. It Provides
that how to choose an Open Source library. It will also provide popular
open source software for digital library in India. 
 What is Digital Library?
Definitions
 A digital library contains digital representations of the objects found in it - most
understanding of the "DL" probably also assumes that it will be accessible via the
Internet, though not necessarily to everyone. But the idea of digitization is perhaps
the only characteristic of a digital library on which there is universal agreement.

 Digital Library a collection of material organized to provide physical,

bibliographical, and intellectual access to a target group with a staff that is trained
to provide services and programs related to the information needs of the target
group"

We can say that:

“An informal definition of a digital library is a managed collection of
information, with associated services, where the information is stored in
digital formats and accessible over a network”
Advantages Of Digital Library

A major advantage of digital libraries is that

people from all over the world can gain access to
the information at any time .
 No physical boundary
 Round the clock availability
 Multiple accesses
 Information retrieval
 Preservation and conservation
 What is Open Source?

More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the

users of the software:
• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose,
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt
it to users’ needs
 Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
 The freedom to redistribute copies so one can help another.
 The freedom to improve the program, and release the
improvements to the public, so that the whole community
can get the benefits. The word ‘open’ never refers to
freedom.
 Definition
A Software is said to be Open Source is the source (background) code of the software is
open for further enhancements and to increase reusability of the software by the user itself
so as to achieve the required features.
Role of Open Source Software (OSS) in Learning
and Teaching

 The Absence of license fees: Most of the times

institutes pay a plenty of amount of software’s
companies to use their products but open source are
license free.
 Flexibility: OSS are flexible they are easy to
customized and free modules and other features are
also imported through the community.
 Service Community: Forums are the networks of
people who share their experiences and also come
up with features which are communicated among
forums.
Why and how to choose Open
Source?
Open source means the software code is available
to users and developers, with few restrictions on
usage, modification or distribution. Open Source
Software is widely deployed by corporations and
governments for robust applications in business,
education and science.

 Extensibility
 Low cost
 Security
Popular Open Source Software for Digital
Library in India

DSpace

 Why DSpace?
 • Dspace is an open source technology platform which can be customized
or extend its capabilities.
 • Dspace is a service model for open access and/or digital archiving for
perpetual access.
 • Dspace is a platform to build an Institutional Repository* and the
collections are searchable and retrievable by the Web.
 • To make available institution-based scholarly material in digital formats.
The collections will be open and interoperable.
Popular Open Source Software for Digital
Library in India
FEDORA
 The fedora is based on the flexible extensible Digital object and Repository

Architecture (FEDORA). It can be used to develop institutional repositories and

other interoperable web-based digital libraries and the system implements the
fedora architecture, adding utilities that facilitate repository management. It has
been developed by the university of Virginia and Cornell University.

Characteristics of Fedora
 Preservation

 Metadata

 Access

 System Features
Popular Open Source Software for Digital
Library in India

EPRINT
EPrints Open Source Software is  a  platform for building
repositories of research literature, scientific data, student
theses, project reports, multimedia artefacts, teaching
materials, scholarly collections, digitised records,
exhibitions and performances.
 EPrints is free software developed by the University of

Southampton, England.
 EPrints is the most flexible platform for building high

quality, high value repositories, recognised as the easiest

and fastest way to set up repositories.
Popular Open Source Software for Digital
Library in India

KOHA 2.2

Koha version 2.2 is a free/libre open source integrated
library
system (ILS) for automating a lending library. It has
all of the basic features needed to run a library, handling:
 an online public access catalogue (OPAC) of the library's holdings;
 a database of library users;
 issuing books to borrowers and returning books to the collection;
 borrower requests for library items;
 orders from vendors;
 book budgets;
 transfers between library branches;
 management of subscriptions to periodical publications; and most other
functions associated with operating a lending library.
Popular Open Source Software for Digital
Library in India

GREENSTONE
Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library
collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on
the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital
Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in
cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source,
multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

WHY LIBRARIES NEEDS OPEN SOURCE

 Severe budget cuts.
Increased demand for services.
 Lack of adequate staffing
Conclusion
Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative work to help each other,
they are not the same thing. The Free Software Foundation uses a specific license
and provides software under that license. The Open Source Initiative seeks support
for all open source licenses, including the one from the Free Software Foundation.
These initiatives have much potential for libraries and information centers and
there are numbers projects, including Koha, Greenstone, Dspace, Fedora etc.
Collections may be built and served locally from the user’s own web server, or
remotely on a shared digital library host. Open Source essentially empowers less
privileged communities though it does not follow that it is meant only for them.
There is no denying the fact that OSS enables bridging the digital divide in more
ways than one. Libraries in the developing countries are able to support electronic
access, digital libraries.
Thank You

anilkmishra