Bachelor of library and information science

Department of Library and Information Science

Dr Zakir Husain Library
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi-110025

Assignment -03
B101- Foundation of Library and Information Science
Topic: Role of INFLIBNET in the development of college &
Universities Libraries in India

Prepared for:
Dr Syed Mohd Abbas
Documentation officer, ZHL
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Prepared by:
Sonam Chhaprana
BLIS -2020-21
Roll no- 39

Contents
 INFLIBNET
o About INFLIBNET
o Objectives and functions
o Organization
o MISSIONS
o Activities and services
o INFLIBNET center library
o Membership
o Publications
 Role of INFLIBNET in college and university library
 Conclusion
 References
 INFLIBNET
(Information and Library network)

About INFLIBNET
In April 1988, the University Grant Commission (UGC) constituted a committee under the
chairmanship of Prof. Yash Pal, to work out the details of a university information library
networking system. The report of this working group was published in December 1988
containing a project proposal for the establishment and development of an information and
library network. Finally, in April 1991, INFLIBNET, located in Gandhinagar (Gujarat) was
initiated. It Is an Autonomous Inter-University Centre (IUC) of University Grants Commission,
New Delhi (Ministry of Education, Govt. of India). It can be defined as a computer
communication network of libraries and information centres of universities, institutions of
national importance, Research and Development Institutions, bibliographical information
centres, etc., thereby improving the capability in information handling and services. It is
involved in modernizing university libraries in India using the state-of-art technologies for the
optimum utilisation of information. INFLIBNET is set out to be a major player in promoting
scholarly communication among academicians and researchers in India.

Objectives and functions

1) To promote and establish communication facilities to improve capability in information
transfer and access.
2) To promote and implement computerization of operations and services in the libraries
and information centres of the country, following a uniform standard.
 3) To evolve a national network interconnecting various libraries and information centres
in the country and to improve capability in information handling and service;
4) To provide reliable access to document collection of libraries by creating on-line union
catalogue of serials, theses/ dissertations, books, monographs and non-book materials
(manuscripts, audio-visuals, computer data, multimedia, etc.) in various libraries in
India:
5) To provide access to bibliographic information sources with citations, abstracts, etc.
through indigenously created databases of the Sectorial Information Centres of NISSAT,
UGC Information Centres, City Networks and such others and by establishing gateways
for on-line accessing of national and international databases held by national and
international information networks and centres respectively;
6) To develop new methods and techniques for archival of valuable information available
as manuscripts and information documents in difference Indian languages, in the form
of digital images using high density storage media.
7) To optimize information resource utilization through shared cataloguing, inter-library
loan service, catalogue production, collection development and thus avoiding
duplication in acquisition to the extent possible;
8) To create databases of projects, institutions, specialists, etc. for providing on-line
information service;
9) To encourage co-operation among libraries, documentation centres and information
centres in the country.
10) To train and develop human resources in the field of computerized library operations
and networking to establish, manage and sustain INFLIBNET.
11) To facilitate academic communication amongst scientist, engineers, social scientists,
academics, faculties, researchers and students through electronic mail, file transfer,
computer/audio/video conferencing, etc.
12) To promote R&D and develop necessary facilities and create technical positions for
realizing the object.

ORGANIZATION
The organization of INFLIBNET can be viewed from the following angles-
 National Centre: One national centre at Ahmedabad.
 Regional Centre: 4 Regional centre located in four geographical region of the country.
They are North: Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi ; South: Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore ; East: Jadavpur University, Kolkata; West: University of Poona,
Pune.
 Sectoral Centre: These are means for bibliographic and information services. About 40
Sectoral Information Centre (S.I.C.) will be set up in due course.
  Document Resource Centre (DRC): About 100 library / Information centres will be
deigned as Document Resource centre. They will provide Document Delivery Services.
Each regional centre will maintain the copies of union catalogue of other regions so that Union
Catalogue enquires relating to the whole country holding can be solved at the regional centre
itself. The terminal of the college / department library is to be connected to the University
library, the terminal of the University library is to be connected to the Regional centre, sectoral
centre and D.R.C

MISSIONS
I. Achieve complete automation of libraries in educational institutions Create union
catalogues of documents available in libraries in online and real time environment.
II. Promote digitization of legacy documents and creation of content in e-format (including
electronic theses and dissertations, electronic version of research articles, working
papers, technical reports, concept papers, technical reports, annual reports, statistical
data, etc.) in universities.
III. Promote setting-up of open access digital repositories in universities for hosting content
created in the process mentioned above.
IV. Develop expertise in
 Digital content creation;
 Process of digitization; and
 Managing digital depositories.
 Impart training in applications on various aspects of new technology to achieve goals
mentioned above.

ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

The technology being a driving force in the contemporary education system, the Centre has
taken-up a number of initiatives for the benefit of the academic community in India.

LIBRARY AUTOMATION
 INDCAT
Union Catalogue of Indian Universities (IndCat) is a by-product of the library automation of the
INFLIBNET Centre wherein universities that are signatory to the MoU on library automation
contribute the bibliographic records of documents that are available in their libraries.
  SOUL 2.0
The SOUL 2.0 (Software for University Libraries) is state-of-the-art integrated library
management software designed and developed by the INFLIBNET Centre based on
requirements of colleges, universities and other academic libraries. The software is compliant
to international standards for bibliographic formats and circulation protocols. It is compliant to
international standards such as MARC 21 for the bibliographic format, Unicode based Universal
Character Sets for multilingual bibliographic records and NCIP 2.0 and SIP 2 based protocols for
RFID, electronic surveillance and control.

E-CONSORTIUM
 E-SHODHSINDHU
e-ShodhSindhu is an initiative of Consortium for Higher Education Electronics Resources by
Ministry of Education. It provides access to e-resources (10000+ full-text journals, 164300+ e-
Books and 4 databases through e-ShodhSindhu and 600000 e-Books through NDL) to
Universities, Colleges and Centrally Funded Technical Institutions in India.

 N-LIST
The Project entitled “National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly
Content(N-LIST)”, graduated as a regular scheme of UGC under UGC-INFONET Digital Library
Consortium as college component, is merged into e -ShodhSindhu: Consortia for Higher
Education E-Resources. The N-LIST provides access to 6,000+ journals, 1,64,300+ ebooks under
N-LIST and 6,00,000 eBooks through NDL to all Govt., Govt.-aided as well as non-aided colleges
through a proxy server / shibboleth.

 INFISTATS
The Centre has developed a software called InfiStats, for monitoring the usage statistics of
various e-resources made accessible to the member institutions. The InfiStats portal imports
the usage data from the publisher’s website automatically and store it is a database on InfiStats
platform. The InfiStats interface provides title-level COUNTER-compliant reports to member
institutions. The member institutions can also log-on to this portal for monitoring the usage of
their respective e-resources.

 INFED
INFLIBNET Access Management Federation(INFED) was setup which uses Shibboleth, a
standard-based open source software, for authenticating authorized users from colleges and
universities and provide them seamless access to e-resources from anywhere, anytime.
Shibboleth offers a mechanism for users to access multiple resources within a federated single
sign-on framework.

 SHODHSHUDDHI
The Govt. of India was to provide Plagiarism Detection Software to all Indian
Universities/Institutions including Central Universities, State Universities, Deemed to be
Universities, Private Universities, Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs), Institute of
National importance (INIs), Inter University Centres of UGC (IUCs). The INFLIBNET Centre is a
nodal agency to execute the project/initiative under the aegis of Ministry of Education.

OPEN ACCESS INITIATIVE

 SHODHGANGA
Shodhganga is a digital repository set-up for submission of electronic versions of theses and
dissertations by students / research scholars in universities in India and make them available in
open access to the world-wide academic community where-in the responsibility of maintaining
the digital repository of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) is assigned to the INFLIBNET
Centre. Shodhganga is set-up using DSpace, an open-source software, that uses internationally
recognized protocols and interoperability standards.

 SHODHGANGOTRI
Under this initiative, research scholars/research supervisors in universities could deposit an
electronic version of approved synopsis submitted by research scholars to the universities for
registering themselves under the PhD programme. Synopses in Shodhgangotri would later be
mapped to full text thesis in Shodhganga. As such, once the full-text thesis is submitted for a
synopsis, a link from the synopsis in Shodhgangotri to the full-text theses in Shodhganga will be
provided.

 INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY
The Centre has established an institutional repository called IR@INFLBNET using DSpace, open
source software. The papers published in the proceedings of the CALIBER and PLANNER are
uploaded into the repository. The Repository also includes course materials, newspaper
clippings, etc.

 INFOPORT
INFLIBNET Subject Gateway for Indian Electronic Resources is designed to facilitate registering
of an Internet resource into the portal and extending its access to users. INFOPORT supports
browsing of Internet resources by Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Scheme.
SCHOLARLY NETWORK
 VIDWAN: EXPERT DATABASE
Expert Database and National Researcher’s Network is the premier database of profiles of
scientists and faculty members working in leading academic institutions and other R & D
organizations in India.

 IRINS
IRINS is web-based Research Information Management (RIM) service provided by the Centre to
organize the research related information at the institute level. The portal facilitates the
academic, R & D organizations and faculty members, scientists to collect, curate and showcase
the scholarly communication activities and provide an opportunity to create the scholarly
network. The IRINS is available as free software-as-a-service to the academic and R&D
organizations in India.

E-CONTENT DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICES

 E-PG PATHSHALA
e-PG Pathshala is an MHRD initiative under its National Mission on Education through ICT
(NME-ICT), executed by the UGC. Under this initiative, a huge volume of content along with its
quality is developed for 70+ subjects and accessible in open access mode.

 VIDYA-MITRA
Vidya-mitra is an online learning portal for all the e-content projects. The portal facilitates
searching and browsing of all content hosted on a platform wherein a learner can easily access
the desired material including audio/video learning material, textual material, multimedia-
enriched materials, etc. through a single interface. Currently, vidya-mitra has 44,450+ eText and
66,000+ Video.

 UGC-MOOCS
The INFLIBNET is executing this project under the aegis of UGC. The major role of INFLIBNET is
fund disbursement to all course coordinator, the web interface of course proposal and a
dedicated portal for UGC-MOOCs. Portal provides a dashboard for SWAYAM coordinators,
mentors, information on PG-courses update, workshop details, etc.

 SWAYAM PRABHA
The SWAYAM-PRABHA, an MHRD project under NME-ICT, is conceived as a group of 32 DTH
channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programmes on 24X7 basis using
the GSAT-15 transponders.

INFLIBNET CENTRE LIBRARY

The INFLIBNET Library plays a vital role in the collection development and dissemination of
scientific and technical information to meet the present and future needs of the Centre,
consisting of 2000 documents on computer, communication, information and library science.
The library is fully computerized using SOUL integrated library management software. The
collection of the library is available online through the web OPAC facility of the SOUL.

LIBRARY SERVICES
 Reference Service
 Document Delivery Service
 Current Awareness Service
 Inter Library Loan Service
 Electronic Information Service
 Photocopy Service

MEMBERSHIP
The Centre has institutional membership of following national and international organizations:
 Association for Information Management (ASLIB)
 International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)
 American Library Association (ALA)
 National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
 Indian Library Association (ILA)
 Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)
 Society for Information Science (SIS)
 Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centres (IASLIC)
  Computer Society of India (CSI)
 ADINET (Ahmedabad Library Network)
 American Resource Centre,
 British Library, Ahmedabad

PUBLICATIONS
The INFLIBNET Centre publishes following publications regularly:
 Annual Report Current Report.
 INFLIBNET Newsletter: It is a quarterly publication on the INFLIBNET’s activities.
 Proceedings of Annual Conventions PLANNER and CALIBER
 INFLIBNET Directory includes information about the UGC funded universities and Inter-
University Centres with year planner.

ROLE OF INFLIBNET IN COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY

LIBRARIES IN INDIA
Our Indian higher education system is very large in the world. From the ancient period
education was there, but after independent its growth and development is very high. Several
school, colleges, research institutes and Universities are established by government and
also private agencies. All these institutions all over the country to generate and
disseminate knowledge coupled with the noble intention of providing easy access to higher
education to the common India. The development of a country relies highly on the Education
policy followed in that Country. The development rate will be high only if quality higher
education is given to the People. Education has been seen as the foundation in a person’s life.
The most important and Urgent reform needed in education, is to transform it, to endeavour to
relate it to the life, needs and Aspirations of the people, and thereby make it a powerful
instrument of the social, economic and Cultural transformation necessary for the realization of
the national goals. Education is the very Basic need of the society. Without education, usage,
invention and advancements in different Fields will not be possible. Higher education plays a
vital role in creating a knowledgeable society. Higher educational institutions and organizations
work for a creating knowledgeable society. Progress towards a knowledge-based society and
economy will require that universities, as centres of knowledge creation, and their partners in
society and government, give Knowledge Management their full attention. Universities teaching
a curriculum and syllabus based education “by the book”, may not solve the complex questions
of the future, but by Knowledge Management. Our aim is to make the Universities perform well
in the future, using Knowledge portals. (Anand Kumar & Uma, 2012).
The UGC, however, was formally established only in November 1956 as a statutory body of the
Government of India through an Act of Parliament for the coordination, determination and
maintenance of standards of university education in India. In order to ensure effective region
wise coverage throughout the country, the UGC has decentralized its operations by setting up
six regional centres at Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Bangalore. Modern
Indian higher education is passing through the phase of Information/Knowledge revolution. In
satisfying ever growing information needs of academic community, the Library and Information
Networks are playing a great role through resource sharing. In the development of higher
education INFLIBNET’s role is very important from the post independent period. INFLIBNET
centre is a boon of Indian Higher education. (Karn & Das, 2009).
 Conclusion
In the importance of higher education every country library and information
centre’s role Is very important. Because without library and information resources
cannot be implementing, Develop and grow the education system and policy. So,
Indian Govt. decides the setup the INFLIBNET centre in Ahmedabad in 1991. And
its objectives are to promote and establish Communication facilities to improve
capability in information transfer and access, which provide Support to
scholarship, learning, research and academic pursuit through cooperation and
Involvement of agencies concerned. Information and Library Network a computer
Communication network for linking libraries and information centres in
universities, deemed to be universities, colleges, UGC information centres,
institutions of national importance and R & D institutions, etc. avoiding
duplication of efforts. And many more objectives are keeping in front of
supporting the higher education of India. All services, activities and sources of
INFLIBNET to help the education.
References
 Anand Kumar, N. V., & Uma, G. V. (2012). Design and development of meta-model for
Knowledge management in higher education domain (Unpublished Thesis). Chennai:
Anna University.
 Karn, S. K., & Das, B. K. (2009). Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) :A Boon for
Higher Education in India. International Conference on Academic Libraries (ICAL-2009)
(p. 698700). Delhi: Delhi University
 Shahaji Shankar Waghmode. “Role of INFLIBNET in Growth and Development of Higher
Education in India” (PDF). E-LiS. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
 Websites
o https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INFLIBNET_Centre
o http://www.inflibnet.ac.in/