Vol 21 No 1 March 2002
National Conference on Digital Asset Management
The Central Library of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras organized the Conference in association with the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam and Madras Library Association during 18 _19 September 2001. A large number of library and information science professionals from the entire country including neighbouring country like Bangladesh participated.
Prof M Anandakrishnan, Vice Chairman, Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education inaugurated the Conference. Prof C R Muthukrishnan, Deputy Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and President, Computer Society of India presided over the inaugural function and also released the Conference volume. Dr S Venkadesan, Director of the Conference provided introductory information.
Technical sessions covered such areas as Digital Asset Management, Infrastructure for Digital Management, Cyber Publishing, E-Collections, IPR and Information Retrieval Strategies, Digital Solutions from Industries, and Content/Knowledge Management.
The Pre-conference Tutorial - Digitize Your Library, organised on 17th September 2001 was divided into five technical sessions dealing with Web and Electronic Publishing; Building Digital Library: Vision and Tasks; Practical Guide to Building Digital Library; Design and Development of Web OPACs; and Digitization and Online Submission of Theses.More details have been posted on Conference Web site at http://www.cenlib.iitm.ac.in/readit2001.
Communicated by Dr Harish Chandra, Librarian, IIT Madras, Chennai.
E-mail: hchandra[at]iitm.ac.in
Workshop on Access to Social Science Information in the Networked Environment
The five-day Workshop held at INFLIBNET Centre in collaboration with National Social Science Documentation Centre (NASSDOC), New Delhi from 11-15 June 2001 was aimed to create awareness about the usage of social science information. The Workshop, second in series, was organised under the sponsorship of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi and the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), The Hague. The first one titled Internet and Social Science Information was held at INFLIBNET during 13-16 December 1999. In all 24 candidates comprising students, teachers and librarians from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi participated.
The Workshop was inaugurated by Dr K G Tyagi, Director, NASSDOC. He highlighted the importance of social science research in the new millenium and the efforts of ICCSR in the field of social science research in India.
In all, ten lectures on the following topics were delivered: Social Science Information - Nature, Type, Growth; Introduction to Internet; E-Information Environment Scenario in India: Today and Tomorrow; Social Science Information Sources and Services; Information Sources on Internet; Impact of Internet on Social Science Research; Accessing Information on Internet; Role of INFLIBNET for Academic and Research Community; CD-ROM Databases in Social Sciences; and Criteria for Evaluation of Internet Resources.
The Workshop focussed on practical usage of Internet and retrieval of social science information from the Web. Each participant was provided with sufficient course material comprising more than 280 pages and one PC with Internet connectivity to get hands-on_experience. The technical team provided necessary guidance during the practical sessions.
Dr T A V Murthy, Director, INFLIBNET chaired the concluding session and distributed the certificates to the participants. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Murthy highlighted the importance of electronic media and trend towards e-learning. He also opined that similar courses are required to be conducted for the teachers and students at various places and INFLIBNET will make an attempt.
Communicated by Dr T S Kumbar, INFLIBNET, Ahmedabad
Seminar on Right to Information
Under the auspices of Lok Satta, Tenali Branch, the Workshop was organised at Tenali on 7-10-2001. Shri Y Venketarao, Member, Rajya Sabha in his inaugural speech stressed the importance of Right to Information. Several eminent personalities participated in the Seminar. Sri K Rama Shastri welcomed the gathering.
Communicated by Dr. Velaga Venkatappaiah, D No. 4-22-27, Ithanagaram, Tenali-522201, India
Web page designing
A lecture-cum-discussion was held in the monthly ADINET Study Circle meeting on 23rd November, 2001 at M J Library, Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad. In the meeting, Mr Saroj Das of the Institute for Plasma Research Library, Gandhinagar delivered a talk on the basics of Web page designing covering among others the following topics: Web page; Purpose, creation, working, and constituents of Web page; Web authoring languages; Hyper Text Markup Language; HTML documents, editors, tags; and adding of images and links. He said that Internet is a vast reservoir of information. Web is ever growing with the addition of millions of Web pages every year. Newer ingredients of designing Web pages such as Java, dynamic documents and XML are already beginning to impact the method of Web resource creation. To keep pace with the fast changing world, LIS professionals are to upgrade their knowledge by learning these new technologies to serve their user community efficiently.
Communicated by PC Shah,Hon. Director, ADINET
Training Course of WINISIS
Ahmedabad Library Network (ADINET) in collaboration with National Information System for Science and Technology (NISSAT), New Delhi organised a training course on WINSIS during November 5-9, 2001. Twenty four participants hailed from Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Kodaikanal, and comprised research scholars, teachers from LIS schools, librarians from academic and research institutions, news services, and NGOs.
Dr TAV Murthy, Director, INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad inaugurated the course and appreciated the efforts of ADINET for organising such courses. Shri B N Sarkar, Scientist D, NISSAT, the resource person for the course, sketched the outline of the course and exhorted the participants to do more practical work.
The course comprised an overview of the CDS/ISIS ; system installation; CDS/ISIS menus, windows, search languages, formation languages, etc. In short, the focus of the training programme was database creation using Windows version of CDS/ ISIS. Lectures, demonstrations, discussion and hands-on experience were particularly emphasized upon throughout the programme. Dr. TAV Murthy gave a talk on `INFLIBNET Centre & its activities' and highlighted the main features of the proposed UGC-NET.
The valedictory session comprised distribution of certificates; a speech by Dr TAV Murthy assuring the help of INFLIBNET Centre to ADINET for organizing such training programmes and other fruitful activities; opinion survey about the course with the participantsas the sample; and vote of thanks.
Communicated by PC Shah,Hon. Director, ADINET.
Information Today & Tomorrow, Vol. 21, No. 1, March 2002, p.31-p.32
http://itt.nissat.tripod.com/itt0201/events0201.htm
