Welcome to "Regional Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software"
Organised by Department of Library Services, Christian Medical College, Vellore & Madras Library Association, Chennai.
Introduction
The digital age has ushered in significant changes in the information space in terms of operations, collection development strategies, services, and user preferences. The current information environment unequivocally prompts libraries to leverage on the latest digital technologies towards building practical digital libraries and in setting up dynamic electronic information systems. Digital Libraries (DL) are structured storage environments of digital data with a consistent format for index and content abstraction. Digital libraries do enable the seamless integration of the scholarly electronic information, help in creating and maintaining local digital content, and strengthen the mechanisms and the capacity of the library’s information systems and services. They increase the portability, efficiency of access, flexibility, availability and preservation of digital objects. Open Digital Library (ODL) technologies are gaining attention the world over. Without proper understanding of the complexities, procedures and practices involved in content building, content management and collection building, individual DLs will remain islands of structure in an unstructured Internet sea. Today’s information / IT professional must be capable of leveraging the new technology to its fullest extent.
Objectives
The objective of the Workshop is to conduct a 3-day rigorous training programme on Digital Libraries using the Open Source Software ‘Greenstone’ at Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore organized in collaboration with Madras Library Association (MALA).
Rationale
Developing world standard digital libraries demand
deployment of costly software solutions which are beyond the reach of most of the universities/ institutions in India and those in the Asian region. The Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL) is a top of the line and internationally renowned software system for developing digital libraries, promoted by the New Zealand Digital Library project research group at the University of Waikato. Greenstone is developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open source software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The aim of the software is to empower users, particularly in universities, libraries, and other public service institutions, to build their own digital
libraries. More details of the software and example digital libraries built using the software is available at http://www.greenstone.org/.
Workshop Content
The Workshop has been designed to facilitate the participants in creating state-of-art digital libraries using Greenstone, which include software installation, configuration, customization, digitization and other related workflow operations, content development and management, designing and creating standard metadata sets to describe digital objects and encoding it in standard markup formats.
Pedagogy
The workshop will be conducted at the Christian Medical College Vellore (CMC) which is equipped with world-class lecture rooms and computing laboratories with high speed Internet link. For lab sessions, each participant will be provided a PC supplemented with LCD projected live demos. The pedagogy will be a mix of lectures, discussions, case studies and hands-on sessions. Each participant shall be provided with a CD comprising of the Greenstone Software, faculty presentations, and other related software packages. Extensive hands-on labs will be a hall mark of this programme.
Target Audience
The workshop will be of immense benefit to all those involved in developing and maintaining digital collections such as librarians and information professionals, including software professionals belonging to the academia, Government and NGOs.
Workshop Faculty
Dr M.G. Sreekumar, UNESCO Coordinator, Greenstone Support Network South Asia and Librarian & Head, Center for Development of Digital Libraries (CDDL), IIM, Kozhikode (IIMK).
Ms. K. T. Anuradha, Scientific Officer, NCSI, IISC, Bangalore.
Workshop Coordinators
Dr. A. Amudhavalli, President, MALA & Professor & Head, Dept. of Information Science, University of Madras , Chennai, 600 005. email: amudha75@yahoo.com
&
Mr. V. Newton, Senior Librarian & Head, Dept. of Library Services, CMC Vellore - 632 004. e-mail: newton@cmcvellore.ac.in
Workshop Effect
At the end of the workshop, the participants are expected to be well-versed and confident of developing digital libraries using the Greenstone software.
Follow-up
Follow-up support shall be extended through the CDDL of IIMK.
Registration Fee
A fee of Rs. 1500 ( without accommodation )
or Rs. 2500 (with accommodation) will be charged from the participants.
Workshop Participants
The participants are limited to 30.
Selection of candidates will be made as per merit,
commitment to DLs and familiarity with IT applications in libraries.
Applications/ nominations should reach the CMC Vellore, Library Office on or before Jan. 25, 2007.
Participants, while applying, shall give a brief
statement of interest in Greenstone, major objectives of attending the workshop as well as their expectations from the programme.
Dates and Venue
The workshop will be held during February 8 to 10, 2007 at CHTC Auditorium , CMC Bagayam Campus, Vellore (http://dodd.cmcvellore.ac.in/rwgsdl.htm)
Inquiries or contact
Mr. V. Newton, Senior Librarian & Head
CMC Vellore – 632 004, Tamilnadu, INDIA.
e-mail: dodd@cmcvellore.ac.in
Ms. R. Gowri, Secretary, MALA
e-mail: gravindranth@hotmail.com
Mobile : 938233882