Role of National Digital Library of India amid COVID-19 pandemic

During this COVID-19 pandemic, the government has closed all the educational institutes for safety reasons and all e institutes are moving towards shifting their courses onlin e

Role of National Digital

Library of India amid COVID-19 pandemic pdf

During this COVID-19 pandemic, the government has closed all the educational institutes for safety reasons and all the institutes are moving towards shifting their courses online.

According to UNESCO, “more than 1.5 million students across the world are affected by the COVID-19 outbreak." As an education emergency response, UNESCO has launched the Global Education Coalition which is a multi-sector partnership to promote distance education for all learners. This will not only mitigate the immediate disruption in the education system but also try to establish new approaches to develop a more open and flexible education system for the future.

In this response, Digital libraries have emerged as a knowledge portal offering more and more free content (eBooks, journals, and other educational content.)Digital libraries not only provide access to the education content but also bring information technology, education and culture together and play a role in the sustainable growth and development of any nation. According to IFLA/UNESCO Manifesto for Digital Libraries. “Bridging the Digital Divide: making the world’s cultural and scientific heritage accessible to all.”

National Digital Library of India (NDLI)

Indian higher education system is the third-largest in the world and to establish e-learning in the education system, the National digital library is a key enabler to provide equity and assure the quality of education.

NDLI (National Digital Library of India) launched in 2018, is headquartered at IIT Kharagpur. It is a virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility, initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD). It hosts nearly 48 million records, including ebooks, theses, audio, video lectures, annual reports, technical reports articles, monographs, datasets, and web courses, etc.

During this COVID-19 pandemic, the NDLI has come up at the forefront of learning, to provide free access to the variety of content from the primary level to the postgraduate level across all disciplines. New steps have been taken by the NDLI to help students in this tough phase of lockdown due to COVID-19.

NDLI in collaboration with AICTE (All India Council of Scientific and Technical Education) has initiated a specially designed collection of e-resources for a specific group of students. Students can log in, register and get access to the resources at https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/

A JEE preparation module prepared by IIT Kharagpur is available on the NDLI platform for the students appearing in JEE Advanced 2020 to help their nonstop preparation for the exam.

Some features of NDLI:

It is currently available as an android app having a multilingual search facility.

The contents are available in all 22 official languages of India and in other languages also.

NDLI has content for the visitors of all age groups, from school and college students to the teachers, academicians, legal professionals, and even the learners with special needs.

It has a variety of resources types including e-books, theses & dissertations, audio, video lectures, annual reports, technical reports, articles, monographs, datasets, and web courses, etc.

NDLI Has covered all the disciplines like science and technology, history & geography, literature and music, philosophy and psychology, agriculture, religion, and law, etc.

It has all the contents from the different multidisciplinary government portals (NPTEL, NCERT, Krishikosh, Shodhganga, Librivox) integrated and available at a single portal.

A digital library of India is a digital library with a variety of contents in a variety of formats and for a variety of users with an aim of shifting the education system of India through online learning for everyone, to the advanced stage and thus contributing in the sustainable growth and development of India.

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