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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes
Did u know? During the last six to seven years, library and information activities in the
country have entered a new era. Individual libraries are coming out of the proverbial
“Berlin Wall” around them. They are trying to form a larger community in an effort to
tackle the ever increasing demands for better services, quantitatively and qualitatively, in
an environment already over strained by financial pressures. Forced, motivated, or logic
driven, the librarians are coming out of their shell in large numbers.
This has resulted in discernible change in the information scenario. Now a large number of
library resource sharing networks like the Metropolitan Area Networks, such as CALIBNET
(Calcutta), DELNET (Delhi), BONET (Bombay), PUNENET (Pune), MALIBNET (Madras),
MYLIBNET (Mysore), HYLIBNET (Hyderabad), ADNET (Ahmedabad), and countrywide ones
like ERNET (Educational and Research Institutions), SIRNET (CSIR Laboratories), INFLIBNET
(Universities and Research Institutions) and DESINET (Defence Laboratories), and sectoral ones
like BTISNET (Biotechnology) and TIFACLINE (Technology per se) are under various stages of
conceptualization, design and development. A host of agencies, like the National Information
System for Science and Technology (NISSAT), Dept. of Electronics, INSDOC/CSIR, DESIDOC/
DRDO, DBT, NIC, and TIFAC/DST, are involved. Looking from the participant’s side, it is
common to find an institution participating in more than one network. The ultimate goal of
information/library networks is to interlink information resources in a metropolitan area, so
that that user could access information irrespective of its location, format, medium, language,
script, etc. Further, the development of such networks requires actions in several areas such as
training, rationalization of information resource acquisition, diffusion of standards, preparation
of union lists, and generation of database services apart from setting up hardware, software and
communication facilities.

The concept of library networking to aid information resource sharing and support activities in
libraries has become a real necessity. The shortcomings observed are mainly related to two
aspects:
Non-availability of materials and services, and

Efficient administrative control.
In India, the need for resource sharing has been well recognized but the technology options
available until now were limited. NISSAT has taken up networking of libraries in Calcutta
(CALIBNET), Delhi (DELNET), Madras (MALIBNET), Mysore (MYLIBNET), Hyderabad
(HYLIBNET), Ahmedabad (ADNET), Pune (PUNENET), and Bombay (BONET). The present study
highlights only some of the major library networks in India.

Notes Towards library networking activities in India NISSAT has taken the initiative for
promoting resource sharing activities. These initiatives are aimed at ensuring better
utilization of science and technology information resources, minimization of functional
load of information centres and encouragement of motivational factors to a large extent
by better means of communication. NISSAT only goes to the extent of setting up general
infrastructural facilities like network service centres including hardware, software,
manpower and other organizational requirements, communication facilities, etc. With a
change in the development and implementation strategy, the participating institutions in
a network are to arrange their own terminal hardware, software, and manpower and data
conversion.

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