Dissertation

Prospects of digital library for developing countries:

Applying Internet technology

Submitted by:

M Ayaz Karim

ID: 0845129

Module Code: SM3039

Module Name: RESEARCH METHODS & PROJECT

A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Business

Administration.

Supervisor: G Murshed Thakur

September 2009

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In preparing this thesis I gained wonderful and considerable experience in my

educational life which has been filled with a challenges and rewards. The completion

of the present study leads to a new beginning and a step forward towards my future

and in writing the Introduction.

I oblige to thank Dr. Karim Mohammed Rezaul. I would like to express my sincere

gratitude to my Supervisor G Murshed Thakur for his valuable supervision, never

ending support and back-up during this procedure. I am very grateful to him, that

without his guidance suggestions it would not have been possible for me preparing

thesis. Moreover, working on this thesis and he has presented a new world before me

for my further academic research.

Cannot stop without expressing my heartfelt gratitude to all my family members; My

Father; that have trained me to focus on the whole instead of getting lost in the details,

my mother who has meant me the real meaning of patience and helped me by her

advices to have this thesis finished on schedule and finally: my sisters and their

husbands for continues support along the way. Outside of academic circle, I would

like to thank all my friends for their full support in my studies.

Finally, warm thanks to Mr Manoj Choudhury who taught me to get the priorities

straight.

i

DEDICATION

To my parents

ii

ABSTRACT

Digital libraries are here to stay, and the conversion of traditional to digital is

inevitable. It is a key technology for world especially for developing countries. They

can assist human development by providing a non-commercial mechanism for

distributing humanitarian information on topics such as health, agriculture, nutrition,

hygiene, sanitation and water supply (Witten I. H. et.al. 2002):. There are so many

areas like ranging from disaster relief to medical education, also benefit from new

methods of information distribution also covered by digital library in developing

countries. Globalisation of the digital concept will not be possible until we overcome

the technological gap between developed and developing countries.It is even more

important than disseminating information originating in the developed world is the

need to foster the ability for people in developing countries to build information

collections locally. Outlines a broad range of issues and then goes on to describe how

a freely available digital library system like “Greenstone” provides a flexible tool that

helps meet some of these needs. Being “open source” software, Greenstone can be

shaped by its users to meet new requirements. At last discuss the existing digital

library and prospect of digital library in developing country especially Bangladesh.

iii

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...........................................................................................I

ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................III

CONTENTS...............................................................................................................IV

LIST OF FIGURES...................................................................................................VI

LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................VII

CHAPTER 1.................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................1

1.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................1

1.2 Research Methodology.........................................................................................2

1.2.1 Design of the Study.......................................................................................2

1.2.2 Methods of Primary Data collection.................................................................2

1.2.3 Data Analysis................................................................................................3

1.3 Objectives.............................................................................................................3

CHAPTER 2.................................................................................................................4

LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................4

2.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................4

2.2. Definition of digital library.................................................................................4

2.3. Definition of developing country........................................................................6

CHAPTER 3.................................................................................................................7

DIGITAL LIBRARY...................................................................................................7

3.1: Definition............................................................................................................7

3.2. Exiting Digital Library System in Developing countries....................................7

3.2.1. In Africa.......................................................................................................8

3.2.2. In South Asia..............................................................................................10

3.2.3 In Asia.........................................................................................................12

3.3. Limitations of Existing Systems.......................................................................15

3.4. Conclusion.........................................................................................................16

CHAPTER 4...............................................................................................................17

TECHNICAL ISSUES OF DEVELOPING DIGITAL LIBRARY.......................17

iv

4.1 Understanding Meta-data Standards and its application....................................17

4.2. Making of Digital Library.................................................................................19

4.2 Software Issues in Digital Library:....................................................................21

4.4 Digital Rights Management...............................................................................22

CHAPTER 5...............................................................................................................24

DIGITAL LIBRARY IN SOUTH ASIA: A CASE STUDY BANGLADESH......24

5.1 The Bangladesh Scenario.................................................................................24

5.2. University libraries in Bangladesh:...................................................................24

5.3. Public Libraries................................................................................................26

5.4 Conclusion..........................................................................................................31

CHAPTER 6...............................................................................................................32

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS...............................................................................32

6.1 Digital library development issues in developing countries:.............................32

6.2. SWOT analysis for prospect of digital library in developing country..............34

6.3 Limitations of the study......................................................................................34

6.4. Conclusions.......................................................................................................35

REFERENCES...........................................................................................................36

APPENDIX.................................................................................................................38

Survey Questionnaire...............................................................................................38

Important Websites..................................................................................................40

v

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1. Internet penetration in Africa March 2009................................................10

Figure 3.4: Different statistics about china’s internet uses. [Source:

ChinaInternetWatch.com]............................................................................................15

Figure 3.5: Relationship between literacy rate and computer use in developed and

developing country.......................................................................................................16

Figure 4.1: Resource preservation oriented digital library...........................................18

Figure 4.2: Digital Library of Indian institute of Management....................................21

Figure 4.3: Fee and Password system in a digital library.............................................22

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.3. Internet users and population statistics for Asia.........................................12

Table 3.6: Computer literacy around the world...........................................................16

vii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Information sources accessed via the internet are ingredients of a digital library.

Today, the network connects some information sources that are a mixture of publicly

available information and private information shared by collaborators. They include

reference volumes, books, journals, newspapers, national phone directories, sound and

voice recordings, images, video clips, scientific data (raw data streams from

instruments and processed information), and private information services such as

stock market reports and private newsletters. In the developing country digital library

is one of the most important things.

Digital or Virtual Library is being introduced to the library system worldwide. The

increasing acceptance of Digital library might be due to the diverse information that

they contain, the options for what they can include are virtually endless, as well as

becoming more and more boundless as technology advances. Fabunmi (2009) The

developed countries aim to develop Digital libraries mainly is for the high value

placed on the availability of information. The concept of digital library was developed

in USA with a view to solving the problem of expansion, disorder and inefficiency of

information on the Internet.

Developing country is a term generally used to describe a nation with a low level of

material well being. There is no single internationally-recognized definition of

developed country, and the levels of development may vary widely within so-called

developing countries, with some developing countries having high average standards

of living (Sheffrin 2003)

1

1.2 Research Methodology

1.2.1 Design of the Study

These research methods included with questionnaire system, interview system, and

literature review. In this research we will discuss about the present condition of the

digital library in developing countries by collecting information from secondary

source like Journal, books, news searched by internet. However, we will explain why

we should go ahead with digital library visited of paper based or manual library: we

will discuss what its role in our social life, public access, ethical issues, open sources

software.

To get these benefits we will explain about the platforms wherefrom distribution of

digital libraries, access for readers, access for librarian, distance learning and so on

can be achieved.

1.2.2 Methods of Primary Data collection

In this study research we will contact people and students who go to libraries and who

use online libraries. The result of our research will be on the basis of our taking

interviews, questionnaires, visiting local libraries etc. We will contact 200 such

persons and divide into two sections: 1) Who came from developing countries and 2)

Who came from European Union. We will also use hypothesis method to get

approximate probability in our result. Thereafter we will explain in literature review

about digital library which will help people to get more information about digital

library.

The Questionnaire is the most effective method for this study to collect data for this

research for the following reasons:

The researcher shall conduct his survey covering 200 respondents. It

will not be possible to conduct personal interviews because of time

2

limitation. Therefore, questionnaire survey will be the most

appropriate one for this study.

Though the postal system of the country is good. Hence, postal

survey will be too time consuming to be feasible for this study.

Online survey in developing countries seems not so suitable for this

study.

In most of the studies conducted on the variables of the current study,

the researchers used questionnaire survey for their studies.

1.2.3 Data Analysis

In this context of my research I will propose to do research based on university

students and local people who use internet and library.

The proposed study is based on hypothesis. As a result, after collecting data we will

use hypothesis method to identify whether the relationships exist between measured

variables or not.

Besides we will make use of the following three data processing methods:

Completeness [each question is answered]

Accuracy[check for misleading answers]

Uniformity

1.3 Objectives

The main objectives of the study are as follows:

To find out the lacking of library facilities especially as a digital

library

To find out the problems for not to develop any digital library in the

country

Suggest the way to develop a digital library consortium.

3

CHAPTER 2

Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Although knowledge is critical for development, few developing countries are

participating in the information revolution Just as industrialization and globalization

have increased the gulf between haves and have-nots, [World Development Report:

Knowledge for development. World Bank, 1998/99]. We identify four important areas

where digital libraries can help bridge this gap, and then review pertinent technical

issues. It has often been observed that technological advances in developing countries

can leapfrog those in developed ones. We think digital libraries will provide another

example, compensating for the failure of traditional distribution mechanisms to

address local needs and get information where it is needed. Priorities there include

health, food, housing, drinking water condition, transport condition etc. Though

computers are not a priority, simple, reliable access to targeted information meeting

these basic needs certainly is. Through Digital libraries computer professionals will

get a shining opportunity to help overturn the negative impact (witten et al. Accessed

on 2009)

2.2. Definition of digital library

There are some definition had been coated by Dr. T. B. Rajashekar of digital library:

i) According to Michael Lask ( 1997), Digital libraries are organized

collections of digital information where it combine the structuring and

gathering of information, which libraries and archives have always done,

with the digital representation that computers have made possible.

4

ii) Hurley (2002) said that "Digital libraries are different from traditional

library in that they are designed to support the creation, maintenance,

management, access to, and preservation of digital content.”

iii) Another definition by Harter (1997) is that "A Digital Library contains

digital representations of the objects found in it - most understanding of

the "Digital Library" probably also guesses that it will be accessible via the

Internet, though not necessarily to everyone. He added a also that the only

characteristic of it is that the idea of digitization on which there is

universal agreement."

iv) William Arms (2000) defined digital library is a managed collection of

information, with associated services from where the information is stored

in digital formats and accessible over a network. It has to be meant that a

stream of data sent to earth from a satellite is not a library, but the same

data, when organized systematically, becomes a digital library collection.”

v) Dr. T. B. Rajashekar also gives another definition from Witten and

Bainbridge “a focused collection of digital objects, including text, video,

and audio, along with methods for access and retrieval, and for selection,

organization, and maintenance of the collection is called a Digital

Library."

In conclusion we can quote vast definition by Sun Microsystems.

“Digital library as the electronic extension of functions users typically perform and

the resources they access in a traditional library.” In digital library Sun Microsystems

characterized as the information resources can be translated into digital form, stored in

multimedia repositories that is made available through Web-based services. It is very

necessary in the growth of e-learning (or distance learning) as the virtual alternative to

traditional school attendance. The advantages is as the number of student increasingly

turns to off-campus alternatives for lifelong learning, the library must evolve to fit this

new educational paradigm or become obsolete as students search for other ways to

conveniently locate information resources anywhere, any time.

5

2.3. Definition of developing country

Developing countries has been described on the basis of high level of criteria. Among

them the economic criteria have tended to dominate all the discussions. On the basis

of this criterion the country who have High gross domestic product or GDP as

describe as developed country on the other hand the country who have low gross

domestic product they are called as Developing Country.

Another criterion is industrialization, the country who mainly secondary and tertiary

activity is the major activity these countries are developed country and who have

mostly depend on primary activity they are called as developing country.

Now a days a measure has been created with combination of national income,

economic measures, life expectancy etc. is the Human Development Index where

developed countries have the high rating and the developing nation have the low. Kofi

Annan former Secretary General of the United Nations defined a developed country

as follows. "A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and

healthy life in a safe environment.

According to the united nation statistic division developed and developing are

intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgment about

the stage reached by a particular country or area in the development process.

6

CHAPTER 3

Digital Library

3.1 Definition

Collection of Information, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is

housed that is accessible to public is called a Library: A digital library is a library in

which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The

digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks.

Libraries aim at unrestricted access to content over computer and communication

networks, and digitization may be taken as a visible proposition to enhance the shelf

life of non-digital content by preservation apart from the virtue of increased and easy

access, thereby furthering usage is called as Digital Library (DL). Concluded by

Jeevan (2004)

1. Sherwell (1997) gives the following as the key characteristics of a true virtual

library.

2. In a digital library there is no corresponding physical collection.

3. All the documents should be available in electronic formats.

4. Documents are not stored in any one location.

5. Accessibility of documents from any workstation.

6. Retrieval and deliverance of document as and when required.

7. Availability of effective searching and browsing facilities.

3.2. Exiting Digital Library System in Developing countries

Developing countries comprise a majority of the WTO membership. They are

grouped as “developing countries” and “least developed countries”, There are no

WTO definitions of “developed” and “developing” countries. Members announce for

themselves whether they are “developed” or “developing” countries. However, other

7

members can challenge the decision of a member to make use of provisions available

to developing countries. About two thirds of the WTO’s around 150 members are

developing countries. World Bank, July 2008. Geographic classifications and data

reported for geographic regions are for low-income and middle-income economies, as

defined by the World Bank. Total of 144 countries. WTO (2009). Mostly the

developing countries are located in Africa, South Asia and Asian continent. Here we

would like to discuss some of the leading countries digital library system.

3.2.1. In Africa

The open source Greenstone Digital Library (GSDL) software provides a unique

resource to promote the development of DLs in Africa. In 2007 eIFL.net (Electronic

Information for Libraries) was asked to execute the Greenstone Pilot Project in

Southern Africa on behalf of the Koha Foundation (U.S.A.). In this way some of the

African countries tries to set up digital libraries, but this quantities is too small

according to the number of population of this area. Followings are some example of

existing digital library progress in Africa.

Table 3.1: Internet Users and Population Statistics for Africa

INTERNET USERS AND POPULATION STATISTICS FOR AFRICA

Africa region Population

(2009 Est.)

Pop. %

in World

Internet Users,

Latest Data

Penetration

(% Population)

Use Growth

(2000-2009)

% Users

in World

Total for Africa 991,002,342 14.6 % 65,903,900 6.7 % 1,359.9 % 3.9 %

Rest of world 5,776,802,866 85.4 % 1,602,966,508 27.7 % 349.7 % 96.1 %

World total 6,767,805,208 100.0 % 1,668,870,408 24.7 % 362.3 % 100.0 %

Nigeria

8

Ashcroft and Watts (2004) observed that Nigeria has an acute shortage of digital

systems librarians, information and web technology literate staff in libraries to install

and manage technology networks.

Fabunmi B.A. (2009) in his study coated about Ifidon and Okoli (2002) that they

observed that the first and second generation universities that are those established

between 1948 and 1970; and 1971 and 1979 respectively have completed their library

buildings while the situation of the third generation universities i.e. those established

between 1980 and 1983 is very bad. Ani (2005) had done a research with 22

university library in Nigeria and showed that 9 (sixty four percentages) of the libraries

have related information infrastructures, twelve (eighty six percentages) are

concerned in individual capability construction programmes, 11 (seventy nine

percentages) insist that the level of support in terms of money for university libraries

is very small.

Beside this some other countries has experiencing about digital library facilitated by

greenstone. These are i) the University of Namibia (UNAM), ii) Bunda College

Library in Malawi, iii) the National University of Science and Technology (NUST)

Library in Zimbabwe, iv)and the National University of Lesotho (NUL) Library and

the Lesotho College of Education Library sharing responsibility in Lesotho.

9

Figure 3.1. Internet penetration in Africa March 2009

3.2.2. In South Asia

South Asia typically consists of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal,

Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Most of these countries are either developing or least

developed country. Among these India and Sri Lanka are made a bit good

advancement in Library and science technology. Other countries progress is not

remarkable. In this study only present condition of the DL of India and Bangladesh

will be followed up.

10

India

With an estimated population of 1.2 billion India is the world's second most populous

country. Culturally, linguistically and genetically diversification has given India a

special geographical entity. India has made a huge progress in terms of increasing

primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately two thirds

of the population. Beside this it can be mentioned that 3 universities has ranked within

200 worlds leading university according to The Times. In spite of these it is not that

much rich in digital library progress.

Some of the major initiatives on Digital Libraries in India are furnished below:

Table-3.2 Some National University Libraries Around South Asia

Institution Books Serials DL

Jauharlal Nehru University, India 500,000 800 Yes

Bombay University, India 700,000 N/A Yes

Chepauk Library, Madras University, India 509,263 642 Yes

Calcutta University, India 800,000 795 Yes

Punjub University, Pakistan 442,300 N/A Yes

Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan 195,000 276 Yes

University of Colombo, Sri Lanka 400,000 970 Yes

Tribhuvan University, Nepal N/A N/A No

University of Malaya Library, Malaysia 1,239,749 3613 Yes

Dhaka University, Bangladesh 550,000 250 No

Bangladesh Agriculture University,

Bangladesh

182,000 200 No

Source: Khan (2006)

11

3.2.3 In Asia

Table 3.3. Internet users and population statistics for Asia

Population, internet users, its growth in Asian countries and the world.

ASIA REGIONPopulation

(2009 Est.)

% Pop.

of World

Internet Users,

Latest Data

Penetration

(% Population)

User Growth

( 2000-2009 )

Users %

of World

Asia Only 3,808,070,503 56.3 % 704,213,930 18.5 % 516.1 % 42.2 %

Rest of the

World2,959,734,705 43.7 % 964,656,478 32.6 % 291,1 % 57.8 %

WORLD

TOTAL6,767,805,208 100.0 % 1,668,870,408 24.7 % 362.3 % 100.0 %

12

China

China, a unique alcove in the world's political economy with its vast populace and

large physical size is showing its powerful global presence that can be the general

lessons for other developing countries.

During the past 50 years basic education in China has gained tremendous

achievements. The government has claimed that the net enrolment rate of primary

schools had reached 98.58%.

In recent years china has come into DL network. The National Library of China is

involved in most of China’s national research programs on digital. The Chinese

National Science Digital Library (CNSDL) and National Educational Digital Library

(NEDL) have been completed and The National Digital Library of China, the Socialist

Party Digital Library and the National Defense Industry Digital Library are in

progress.

Information Collection institutions as libraries have accepted the concept of digital

library (both in theory and practice). Many institutions attempted to construct digital

libraries, especially in digital content production, for example, the National Library of

China tried to do digitization of the Library’s traditional collections. China Central

Television (CCTV) and China National Radio (CNR) created video and audio

13

standards of collecting, cataloguing, searching and service to change the multi-media

content into digital form.

Chinese introduced idea on digital library has being followed by the other nations

(according to Chinese Officials). In the United State library system simple service

model is followed, as ‘use by pay for all’ or ‘use free for all’. But China introduces a

new diversified model which provides customized service. According to this model,

customer can pay according to their necessity as for the whole or part of the content.

In recent years, Chinese universities use digital resources as references which are

support by the CALIS. Most universities refer the digital resources as the main

reference resources. China is expecting its development of digital library will

influence the world with a remarkable sign.

14

Figure 3.4: Different statistics about china’s internet uses. [Source: ChinaInternetWatch.com]

3.3. Limitations of Existing Systems

Development of Digital libraries are depending on some factor like Literacy rate of

the population, number of telephone connection and number co computer users and

their connectivity with internet. Beside this the countries political will, capability of

utilizing the fund allocated on infrastructure development, corruption etc. Developing

countries are basically having all the problems. Figure 3.5 shows the difference

between developed and developing countries available option to setup the digital

library. Mostly their literacy rate is not so high, and the literate persons are not very

familiar with computer knowledge.

Also china who are growing as a developed country they have the limitation of

internet facilities. They have some exemplary initiative but for the huge number

population it is not enough. In India they are also trying the same way as China.

Bangladesh and Nigeria are totally depending on the other donor agency to setup their

education related infrastructure. These processes make them dependent and dawdling

in the progress of Digital Library.

15

Figure 3.5: Relationship between literacy rate and computer use in developed and developing country

3.4. Conclusion

Existing situation of the digital library uses in the developing countries is varying in

different places according to their education level, economic growth and total

development progress. Among the selected countries China has done a very good

improvement, India is also going to the level of upper class but Nigeria is now in the

amateur level of digital world. Table ... is showing the availability of basic factors for

development of digital library in different countries of the world.

Table 3.6: Computer literacy around the world

Country Population

(in million)

Literacy

rate

(%)

No of

telephone

connection

(in 000)

No of

cellular

phone

(in 000)

No of

computer

users

(in 000)

No of

internet users

(in 000)

China 1295 86 135000 679000 40.88 85.09

India 1049 64 27700 415250 15.53 54.82

UK 59.1 99 33500 75750 600 473

USA 291 97 35000 271,000 762 629

Bangladesh 140 64 10556 46500 11.74 2.61

Nigeria 124 63.4 * 1072 68000 6.28 35.37

Source: (i) Competition Success Review Year book 2005.

(ii) Career and Competition Monthly

Chronicle: India 2005: A Handy Compendium of Statistics

(iii) Social Watch Report 2008:

http://www.socialwatch.org/en/fichasPais/fichaPaisPortada.shtml.

(iv) Wikipedia. * Primary school going rate in Nigeria.

16

CHAPTER 4

Technical Issues of developing Digital Library

4.1 Understanding Meta-data Standards and its application

Metadata provides context for data. Metadata is used to facilitate the understanding,

characteristics, and management usage of data. The metadata required for effective

data management varies with the type of data and context of use. In a library, where

the data is the content of the titles stocked, metadata about a title would typically

include a description of the content, the author, the publication date and the physical

location. Wikipedia (2009) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata#Purpose

Metadata, is meant by “data about other data,” is a critical element for searching

information through a database especially. To standardize the structure and content of

indexing or cataloguing information is the function of metadata is. With the advent of

digital libraries in western countries, efforts to create better information management

systems and improve existing ones have resulted in multiple standards.

A brief summary of existing worldwide meta-data standards is as follows. The

International Standards Organization’s (ISO) Metadata Working Group has a related

standard, ISO 11179, Specification and Standardization of Data Elements. It may also

be made available to private sectors, civil societies and citizens. The American

National Standards Institute (ANSI) has established the NCITS L8 (formerly X3L8),

the National Committee on Information Technology Standards. The committee covers

naming, identification, definitions, classification, and registration of metadata. The

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a major governing body of the Web has

developed de facto standards including RDF (Resource Description Framework) and

the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) specifications. PICS was originally

intended to aid adults in controlling children's access to the Internet. However, its

standards are usually at a very general level over which meta-standards can be

improvised. The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) has developed an NSDI

metadata standard for spatial data. A software utility has also been developed by

17

ISRO that allows agencies to populate their own metadata in the NSDI Metadata

Standard format and then link it with the overall metadata server. Maps and satellite

images made available through this facility will be used for decisions at the local,

regional, state and central level planning, implementation of action plans,

infrastructure development, disaster management support, and business development.

Figure 2 shows the metadata and other resources preserved in Digital library.

Figure 4.1: Resource preservation oriented digital library

Paper Collectio

n

Paper Collectio

n

Catalo

gue

Catalo

gue

ScanScan EvaluationEvaluation

IndexIndex

Digital ContentDigital Content

Abstract

Abstract

OCROCR

MetadataMetadata FullTextFullText

Image

Image

SearchSearch LinkLink

Distribution, License Management Payment Management

Distribution, License Management Payment Management

Own library

Classification

Own library

Classification

Resource preservation oriented digital library Resource preservation oriented digital library

18

4.2. Making of Digital Library

DLs can be built with very few software toolkits. A few institutions investigated the

approach to create software toolkits by a natural solution. Dienst is a DL developed at

Cornell University. It’s tasks are clearly divided and specified by a protocol based on

HTTP and eventually using XML. It can support distributed operation of the

NCSTRL project. Alternative software, Repository-in-a-Box (NHSE, 2001) has been

introduced by the University of Tennessee, as E-Prints software from the

Southampton University (OpCit, 2001).

There is no doubt is that is the single most effective information dissemination tool in

the world of current times. Undoubtly it was primarily possible because of the

simplicity of the protocols it relies on and the hierarchical manner in which protocols

such as HTTP (Fildinng et.al., 1999 ) build on more fundamental protocols such as IP

and TCP. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for

distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. Its use for retrieving

inter-linked resources led to the establishment of the World Wide Web. Basically, an

HTTP client using for a request that a transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

connection to a particular port on a host. An HTTP server listening on that port waits

for the client to send a request message.

For the Greenstone digital library software front end has been created with a beta

release of the EmeraldView being completed.( emeraldview-front-end-to-greenstone-

digital-library-software/). This front-end software were used for designing Greenstone

digital library software. This front-end was written in PHP using the framework of

codeIgniter that enables the greenstone library software protecting its files with this

every one could run the normal or standard view of greenstone front-end.

Greenstone's cryptic URLs of unusual size are a fail for user comprehensibility,

search engine crawlers, bookmarking, etc. Though extensive customization of the

display is possible, there are some stopping points where modification of the C++

source is required.

19

C++ Server Pages (CSP) allows developers to build Dynamic Web Pages and Web

Apps by using C++. Existing C++ projects can be ported to the Web by simply

including the C++ source code, or by importing the C++ libraries to CSP scripts. It is

similar to ASP and JSP, but instead of VBScript, JScript, or Java it uses C++, giving

an incredibly high processing performance to your web applications. It supports

automatic script compilation and provides the developer with a complete Web

programming framework. It works both with IIS and Apache.

Java Script:

JavaScript is used in millions of Web pages to add functionality, validate

forms, detect browsers, and much more. JavaScript is the most popular

scripting language on the internet, and works in all major browsers, such as

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari. JavaScript gives

HTML designers a programming tool - HTML authors are normally not

programmers, but JavaScript is a scripting language with a very simple syntax!

Almost anyone can put small "snippets" of code into their HTML pages.

JavaScript's official name is ECMAScript. (W3Schools.com accessed on

2009)

JavaScript can put dynamic text into an HTML page - A JavaScript statement

like this: document.write("<h1>" + name + "</h1>") can write a variable text

into an HTML page

JavaScript can react to events - A JavaScript can be set to execute when

something happens, like when a page has finished loading or when a user

clicks on an HTML element

JavaScript can read and write HTML elements - A JavaScript can read and

change the content of an HTML element

JavaScript can be used to validate data - A JavaScript can be used to validate

form data before it is submitted to a server. This saves the server from extra

processing

20

JavaScript can be used to detect the visitor's browser - A JavaScript can be

used to detect the visitor's browser, and - depending on the browser - load

another page specifically designed for that browser

JavaScript can be used to create cookies - A JavaScript can be used to store

and retrieve information on the visitor's computer.

The customization that is supported is via a system of micro-templates referred to as

macros. This system is so heavily nested and cross-referenced that it is very difficult

to conceptualize how any given page is generated.

4.2 Software Issues in Digital Library

Software is the most important part of developing DL.“Greenstone” is digital library

software used for building and distributing digital library assortments and issuing it on

the Internet or any removable device. Created and distributed by the New Zealand

Digital Library Project, it incorporates functions like metadata, full text explores and

recovery, diversified linguistic support, support for various document formats and

management. Greenstone is open-source software, issued under the terms of the GNU

General Public License. The aim of the software is to build a digital library for

empowering users in all level of institution mainly in university libraries, government

libraries and other government and non-government public service institutions.

Figure 1 is an example of using Greenstone software based DL in India.

Figure 4.2: Digital Library of Indian institute of Management

21

4.4 Digital Rights Management

Given the vulnerability of materials accessible over the public access networks like

the Internet, issues of IPR of material over the digital domain has become a serious

concern. Digital Rights Management involves ways in which the digital library

operators manage issues of IPR, those of ownership of material made available on the

digital library, how one controls access to as well as dissemination of copyrighted

material. Several methods of managing digital rights do exist nowadays from which

one could choose to adopt the more convenient one for their purposes. Examples

include,

(i) charging a fee for the use of material as part of a copyright fee if that is

mandatory,

Figure 4.3: Fee and Password system in a digital library

(ii) Act as a middleman for other libraries so as not to get involved in these

issues and to let the source organization deal with its IPR.

(iii) Holding restricted access to resources using user authentification method for

those paid/registered users. This can be enabled using magnetic swipe cards,

biometric methods or simple online security software that pops a

username/password dialog box

(iv) Withholding original material and sending photocopies to the addresses. Of

course, this works only at a local level and also for only an automated library

22

that provides access to its catalo online and allows requests for materials to be

sent.

(v) Using logos, logotypes as watermarks to protect source ownership of the

materials.

23

CHAPTER 5

Digital Library in South Asia: a case study Bangladesh

Bangladesh is one of the countries who lead the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in

the world. Bangladesh, with 133 million people, is an impoverished country in South

Asia and it embodies all of the above characteristics and difficulties of a developing

country. According to USAID (2007) “The Government has placed a high priority on

it, particularly at the primary school level. Although official education statistics are

unreliable, substantial progress has been made over the last 20 years. Enrolments have

increased, the gender balance has improved, and public spending on education has

expanded.” Among those who enter primary school, only 76% complete it. It takes

them an average of 6.6 years to do so. Six percent of children do not enrol, and 25%

of those who do drop out. That means nearly 30% of Bangladeshi children do not

have a primary school education.

5.1 The Bangladesh Scenario

It is a small country with large population. At present the literacy rate of Bangladesh

in urban area is 63.36% (15+) and in rural area it is 48.93(15+) (BBS, 2001). Major

educational & Research Institution, Office, Organization Banks & Insurance

companies etc. have their own libraries. In Bangladesh, the first public library was

established through a private initiative in 1851, whereas the first public library

through a government initiative was established in 1954 (opened to public in 1958).

As of today, a total of 68 government public libraries and a total of 2,000 non -

government public libraries are accessible to the users in the country.

5.2. University libraries in Bangladesh

Almost every university (both public and private) of Bangladesh has libraries of

different types. There are 77 university in Bangladesh among them 54 are private.

24

There are 56 University level institutions in Bangladesh. All these universities or

institutions have libraries of their own. They have collaboration and relationships with

foreign universities. Beside these, there are about 2200 university colleges, institutes

and colleges and 600 organizations, ministries, directories and institutions which

conducts researches and posses libraries of different types.

University of Dhaka is the first university in the country, which is established in 1920-

1922. The first University library was also established with this establishment. The

first private university library was established with the establishment of North South

University (NSU) in 1993.

Bangladesh is a developing country with a very poor socio-economic condition. In

every sector, poverty takes the major dominant role. The government of Bangladesh

has formulated National strategy for Accelerated Poverty (PRSP) in 2005 (extended

up to June). Planning Commission is preparing another PRSP. This project is

accompanied by other les developed countries and is working with full strength to

meet the challenges of millennium development goals (MDG).

It has been revealed that education sector is the driving sector in every part of the

development. In Bangladesh it needs urgent attention according to the Millennium

Development Goals (Midterm Bangladesh Progress Report 2007). People should be

provided with huge amount of information in every sector to get inspiration,

awareness and concepts. And for the development of the education sector, digital

library can play a very critical role here. Recognizing the importance, efforts are being

given for developing digital libraries in all universities, banks, foreign organizations

and Government offices.

In connection with that, publication of journals, literatures, audiovisuals, records in

the Government offices etc. has already started to use digitization methods. Different

dialogues, seminars are taking place for popularizing the concept and methods at

national and international level.

25

5.3. Public Libraries

Public libraries are the library for general people and setup by either Government or

Non Government Organization (NGO) and also run by the Government Officials or

the NGO officials or representatives. According to the administrative and

management point of view, two types of public libraries can be found in Bangladesh.

1. Government and

2. Non-government public libraries.

Problems of Public Libraries in Bangladesh: In Bangladesh there is most common

problems we have found that are as follows

1. The main problem is lack of educated stuff or librarian and their training

facilities are also very negligible

2. Also there is poor in of gratitude of the stipulation of libraries. These are

also affect on library services in a social environment.

3. The librarians status are very poor

4. In Bangladesh it is believed that it has technical backwardness

5. Most of the librarians are unskilled and shy.

6. Government does not allocate that much fund to improve its quality

7. There is a deficient in of proper planning

8. The country is so small according to its population that’s why it has scarcity

of space and equipments to build a good quality library.

9. There be short of co-operation among the libraries and lack of cooperative

strength of mind among the librarians and other stuff

10. Officials do not know the standards for public libraries

11. Lack of consistency in the pay scales of similar stuff, Poor gradation and

irrational structure

12. Either international cooperation has denied in this sector or government

could not manage it.

26

Primary data analysis:

A survey has been conducted with the library user in Bangladesh to find a relation

ship with some analysis. To find a relationship with above analysis the researcher has

done a survey conducting with the library user in Bangladesh. Following are the

results of the survey:

i) Age group:

Mostly young people who goes to college or university they use library

frequently. Their ages are in between 19-25. Following figure shows the

age group of the respondent.

Age group %

7-18 13

19-25 47

26-50 24

50+ 16

ii) Education level:

Mainly in Bangladesh library users are student among them most of the

respondent are reading in undergraduate level. They usually come to

library for preparing their studies. Post graduate holders are mainly using

27

their office library for preparing official works or own academic works.

Following figure shows the percentages of level of education.

Educational Level %

Below secondary level 10

Higher secondary Level 23

Under Graduate 52

Post Graduate 25

iii) Library using duration:

Most of the respondent usually spends below 1 hour in the library in a day. That is

for mainly reading newspaper and magazine. Other people who usually spend

more than one hour they come to prepare their lessons.

Time to spend in library (per day) %

Below 1 hour 41

1-2 28

2-3 23

3-4 8

28

iv) Which library are they using:

Nearly half of the respondents are using their own institutional library. Also a

good number of people are using the public library. The users not only come to

read in public library but they came to visit the library and its adjacent area which

is also a famous tourist spot and also known as a leisure place.

Which library you usually go %

Own Institute library 46

Public library 32

Organization library 12

Other institution library 10

v) Reasons for going to library:

All the student respondents come to prepare their lesson in the library and they

feel comfort to read in library because it is a quite place and all the readers are in

reading mode that makes a perfect condition for reading room. So many readers

come to read and collect novel and story book, so many of them come to reading

newspaper. Few of the respondents who are doing research they come to collect

their research material.

Reasons for going to library %

For preparing lesson 67

For collecting novel or story book 59

For news paper reading 61

For research 12

For other cultural activity 44

vi) Problems of the libraries:

The main problems identified by the users denoted as they have to wait for the

return copy because most of the time popular books does not have enough copy.

Second problem is the books and other products are not well arranged, so it takes

long time to get a specific book or other products. The third problem that they

identified that the stuffs are not qualified to help and also they do not know which

29

books or journals goes where. Following figure shows the problems of the

ordinary libraries denoted by the respondents.

Problems of the libraries %

Not sufficient books 29

Books and journal are not well arranged 38

Copy missed 22

I have to wait until other borrower’s return 68

Stuffs are not educated enough to help 46

It is far from my resident 26

It takes too long to search a copy 57

vii) Problems of getting digital library in Bangladesh:

Bangladesh is a country of struggling people, where every body is doing hard

work but some of the natural disadvantages and huge amount of population of this

country makes it country of fighter (against natural calamity) but country of

happiness. In spite of lack of money the people of this country shows their height

level of hospitality. But to build the entire infrastructure need money. In this case

respondents are indicating the problem of fund to build the infrastructure. That

30

also leads the problem of getting high speed internet facilities. Figure ... shows the

peoples comments about the problem insisting to get the digital libraries.

Problems of getting digital library in

Bangladesh

%

It will need enough money that we do not

have

76

It will need well equipped infrastructure 81

It will need high speed internet facilities 91

It may charge that we may not afford 58

We do not know about this properly 62

5.4 Conclusion

The most neglected field in Bangladesh is the library from the very beginning of

library movement in Bangladesh. The librarian are not getting good support from the

government for this reason, they are not active in their field. These problems hold

back the regular development of libraries in Bangladesh. And also it should be

mentioned that, these problems are not so serious that they cannot be resolved.

31

CHAPTER 6

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

6.1 Digital library development issues in developing countries:

There are umpteen numbers of problems for the Digital Library development in the

developing countries. Some of the prominent and predominant among them include

the following:

i. Lack of proper Information & Communication Technology (ICT)

Infrastructure Digital Libraries demand cutting edge IT and Communication

infrastructure such as:

a. High end and powerful Servers; Structured LAN with Broadband

Intranet facilities, ideally optical fibre based Gigabit networks;

b. Required number of Workstations capable of providing online

information services, computing and multimedia applications;

c. Internet connectivity with sufficient bandwidth, capable of meeting the

informational and computational requirement of the user community.

There are many more related facilities / services which are highly

essential in an ideal digital library environment. It is observed that the

ICT infrastructure in most of the Institutions / Organizations, barring

exceptions, is not up to the desired level so as to run advanced digital

library services to the optimum level.

ii. Lack of ICT Strategies and Policies: A vast majority of the libraries and the

governing body do not have laid down policies on ICT panning and strategies

to meet the challenges posed by the technology push, the information

overload, as well as the demand pull from the users.

iii. Lack of Technical Skills: The Human Resources available in the libraries need

time-to-time professional enrichment inputs and rigorous training on the latest

technologies which are playing around in the new information environment.

The kind of training programmes being imparted in developing countries at the

moment is not able to meet the demand in terms of quantity as well as quality.

32

iv. Management Support for the provision of world class information systems,

resources and services the libraries need the wholehearted support from the

respective management. Institutional support in terms of proper funding,

human resources and IT skills enrichment are prerequisites for the

development and maintenance of state-of-art digital library systems and

services.

v. Copyright / IPR Issues of copyright, intellectual property, and fair use

concerns are posing unprecedented array of problems to the libraries and

librarians are struggling to cope with all these related issues in the new digital

information environment.

vi. Lack of sufficient funding Building and managing digital libraries involves

huge financial resources. The budget allocation of most of the university

libraries is not sufficient for the digital library research and development.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on digital library

research and development activities throughout the world. Digitizing the

existing library materials also involves a huge expenditure.

vii. Software Development Large academic libraries may be able to develop their

own software, perhaps in collaboration with university researchers and IT

departments. But many libraries do not have the resources to build a complete

solution, and a comprehensive commercial solution is often too expensive.

Moreover, due to the various and expanding content and services, no single

product can meet all the requirements of even a basic function of a digital

library (Lund, 2001)

viii. Organization of collection Digital libraries is organized collections of

information. Downloading information from the web and organizing them into

focused collections and making the material more useful to others is a prime

application area for digital libraries.

ix. Illegal and harmful materials Web information is a big portion of any digital

library and some material in the web is illegal and harmful and clearly

inappropriate for public presentation. Violence and pornography are two major

issues in this aspect. It is difficult for our academic libraries to prevent the

usages of those materials.

33

x. Cultural sensitivity Most digital information are produced by people from

European and North American backgrounds, yet the majority of people in the

world live in countries that have a different culture than them (Witten and

Bainbridge, 2003).

6.2. SWOT analysis for prospect of digital library in developing country.

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

Historic Walled nation of achieving need

Huge number of worker;

United with the same socio economic

group;

Proximity to Giant’s Causeway and

Donegal;

Recent and current investment on

telecommunication;

Good number of engineer and library

science graduate.

Corruption in government sector;

Lack of fund;

Mixed marketing message;

Low income people ;

Lack of identification and welcome

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

 

The ability of the area to do any job with

proper guidance by providing appropriate

services in order to compete effectively

with established country;

 

The overall level of popularity and

demand from people ;  

the level of political stability and

perceived level of utilizing the fund;

 

34

6.3 Limitations of the study

The study will be restricted by a number of factors. Firstly, the research shall be

limited only in a small area and with few libraries. Secondly, sample size is very

small. There can be some reservations such as:

The interview system can be dropped by person at any time.

The collecting data might not be reliable.

There are some costs to take interviews which can affect in collecting data.

The methodology might not be perfect in this research.

6.4. Conclusions

Digital libraries are widen up the uses of modern days technology in a direction of

social reformation by which it can be minimize a possible threat towards the

commercialization of information that is practiced by the entertainment industries.

These all are because of letting all the nation of the world is creating and broadcasting

large information collections. When we concern about the developing world digital

libraries may demonstrate to be an “exterminator app” for computer technology which

is an appliance that makes an unremitting market for a showing potential but under-

utilized technology. But dejectedly stated that the Internet does not really expand to

developing countries, and the corresponding developing world is misplaced out on the

atypical amount of basic, day after day all the information that the Web makes

available and its giant persuade on promoting and internationalizing business

opportunities. Very few inducements to create copies of the complete Web available

locally for the reason that of its enormous size, fast change, and uncertain information

value per gigabyte. Nevertheless, in exactly the same form, it is simple to deliver

information collections on both the Web and, on removable media such as DVD or

CD-ROM, indeed, the Greenstone software and other library software illustrated

above allows one to create a complete, run able, self-installing can be done by only

few mouse clicks.

35

REFERENCES 

Any (2005) Evolution of virtual libraries in Nigeria: myth or reality? Journal of

Information Science Volume 31, Issue 1 (February 2005) table of contents Pages: 67 -

70   2005 ISSN: 0165-5515

Arms. W (2000): Digital Libraries. MIT Press. 2000. 

Ashcroft, L. and Watts (2004) ICT Skills for Information Professionals in Developing

Countries: Perspective from a Study of the Electronic Information Environment in

Nigeria. Retrieved on 11/30/2006 from http://www/ifla.org/V/iflaji/IFLA-Journal-1-

2005.pdf

Bernie Hurley, 2002) the Director for Library Technologies at U.C.Berkeley. Quoted

in Digital library technology trends. Sun Microsystems. August 2002)

Fabunmi B.A. (2009) Challenges and Prospects of Virtual Libraries in Universities in

Nigeria Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria European

Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.33 No.1 (2009), pp.202-208

Fielding, R., J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P. Leach, and T. Berners-

Lee. (1999). RFC2616: Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP 1.1, Network Working

Group, June 1999. Available <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2616.txt>.

Greenstone library (accessed on 2009) http://digital

scholarship.org/digitalkoans/2009/06/07/emeraldview-front-end-to-greenstone-digital

library-software

Harter. S.P. (1997): Scholarly communication and the digital library: Problems and

issues. Stephen P. Harter. (Journal of Digital Information. 1, 1; 1997)

Ian H. Witten, et al (accessed on 2009): The Promise of Digital Libraries in

Developing Countries www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/.../01IHW-ML-MF-DB-

PromiseDL.pdf

36

ISO. (1994). ISO/IEC 7498-1:1994, Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference

Model: The Basic Model, International Organization for Standardization.

Jeevan V. K. J. (2004) Digital library development: identifying sources of content for

developing countries with special reference to India. Science direct. Elsevier Ltd.

2004.

Khan.J.I. (2006) Technical Report 2006-02-02 Internetworking and Media

Communications Research Laboratories Department of Computer Science, Kent State

University http://medianet.kent.edu/technicalreports.html

Lagos, C. and J. R. Davis. (1995). "Dienst - An Architecture for Distributed

Document Libraries", in Communications of the ACM, Vol 38, No 4, p. 47.

Lesk. M. (1997): Practical Digital Libraries. Morgan Kaufmann. 1997.

NHSE. (2001). Repository-in-a-Box. Website <http://www.nhse.org/RIB/>.

Optic. (2001). E-Prints. Website <http://www.eprints.org/>.

Sheffrin. S.M. (2003). Economics: Principles in Action. Upper Saddle River, New

Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 471. ISBN 0-13-063085-3.

http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?.

Sun Microsystems. ( 2002) : The Director for Library Technologies at U.C.Berkeley.

Quoted in Digital library technology trends. Sun Microsystems. August 2002)

USAID (2007) Country report :Bangladesh, United States Agency for International

Development, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Wikipedia 2009, Greenstein, Daniel I., Thorin, Suzanne Elizabeth. The Digital

Library: A Biography. Digital Library Federation (2002) ISBN 1933645180.

Accessed June 25, 2007.

Witten Ian H. and Bainbridge. D (2003):. How to build a digital library. Morgan

Kaufman Publishers, 2003. (page 6) WTO 2009

www.aoac.org/.../2009_list_of_developing_countrie s%5b1%5d.pdf

37

APPENDIX

Survey Questionnaire

Questioner:

1. Name:.........................................................................................................

2. Age :...........................................................................................................

3. Education:..................................................................................................

4. Occupation:...............................................................................................

5. Time to spend in lesson or education per week...............Min/..............Hour

6. Time to spend in library per week:...................................Min/..............Hour

7. Which library you usually go.

i) Own Institute library

ii) Public library

iii) Organization library

iv) Other institution library

8. Highest distance you travel to go to library...............................................km

9. Reasons to go to library

i) For preparing lesson

ii) For collecting novel or story book

iii) For news paper reading

iv) For research

v) For other cultural activity

vi) For just to visit because its a quite place

10. Are you happy with the service provided by the library......Yes/No/Do not know

11. What are the problems of the library

i) Not sufficient books

ii) Books and journal are not well arranged

iii) Copy missed

iv) I have to wait until other borrower’s return

v) Stuffs are not educated enough to help

38

vi) It is far from my resident

vii) It takes too long to search a copy

12. Do you know anything about digital library?

........................................................................................................................

13. If yes did you use it before?.....Yes/No

14. It yes what is the name of the digital library?.................................................

15. How did you fell to use it?..............................................................................

16. Do you think we need digital library consortium?...........................................

17. What do you think about the constrains of getting digital library?

i) It will need enough money that we do not have

ii) It will need well equipped infrastructure

iii) It will need high speed internet facilities

iv) It may charge that we may not afford

v) We do not know about this properly

18. How do you think we can solve the problem?

i) Collecting money form the users

ii) Take loan from the donor agency

iii) Improving the ability of the technical people

iv) Taking initiative and commitment to finish the work

v) People awareness about the facilities of digital library

vi) Government budget allocation on this aspect

19. Do you think is it possible to establish digital library in Bangladesh?....yes/no

20. If yes how long it will take ?..............................................................................

39

Important Websites

Indian libray who have DL

• ‘Archives of Indian Labour’ at the V.V. Giri Institute of Labour

(http://www.indialabourarchives.org/sources/ jnu.htm)

• Indian Institute of Science NCSI

(http://vidya-mapak.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/cgi-bin/library)

• Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (http://intranet.iimk.ac.in/cgi-bin/library)

• Search Digital Library SDL at DRTC Bangalore (https://drtc.isibang.ac.in/index.jsp)

• Nalanda Digital library, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Calicut

(http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in)

• Vidyanidhi Project (http://www.vidyanidhi.org.in)

• Million Book Universal Digital library Project - Carnegie Mellon - IISc - ERNET

(http://www.dli.ernet.in)

• India Gandhi Centre for the ARTS (IGNCA Digital Library) -(http://ignca.nic.in)

• INDEST, Ministry of HRD, GOI (http://paniit.iitd.ac.in/indest)

• National Tuberculoses Institute (NTI), Bangalore (http://ntiindia.kar.nic.in/)

• Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka (RGUHS)

http://www.rguhs.ac.in/dl/index.html)

• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) –

(http://203.200.90.6/tkdl/langdefault/common/home.asp)

• Indian School of Business (http://www.isb.edu/lrc/index.html)

• Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

(http://www.library.iitkgp.ernet.in/usr/elib/digital.htm)

• Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai (http://www.library.iitb.ac.in/

~mnj/gsdl/cgi-bin/library)

• IITMK Trivandrum (http://www.iiitmk.ac.in/iiitmk/digitallibrary.htm)

• National Chemical Laboratory (NCL, CSIR) – Digital Repository –

(http://dspace.ncl.res.in)

• University of Hyderabad (http://202.41.85.234:8000/cgi-bin/gw_42_

6/chameleon

40