Digital Library Solution

The knowledge economy has changed the playing field and one of the key levellers for all stake holders is access to relevant and key knowledge and information. This has brought about a paradigm change in the way Libraries assimilate and disseminate information - from being mere repositories for books and journals to playing a key role in making critical information available to users just in time, irrespective of their physical location and boundaries.




Even before the advent of the Internet and the web, libraries sought to automate and network with each other so that their citizens could have easier and wider access to knowledge resources. The proliferation of resources such as other library catalogues, online databases, full text publications, eJournals, learning resources, discussion forum postings on the web, etc., multimedia files, have posed a considerable challenge to librarians in terms of making .



In order for Libraries to effectively address this challenge, we at Ecole Solutions, help organizations create Digital Libraries using the open-source, community based digital Library software, DSpace.



DSpace provides tools for management of digital assets and is commonly used as the basis for an institutional repository. It supports a wide variety of data, including books, theses, 3D digital scans of objects, photographs, film, video, research data sets and other forms of content. It provides work-flow management tools for content submission, review and approval



DSpace is the preferred digital library software for academic, non-profit, and commercial organizations building open digital repositories. DSpace has been installed all over the world by many institutions, as an effective way to deliver access to research reports, scholarly publications, library collections, and more.DSpace can be very effectively used to create:



Institutional repositories (Theses, research reports, dissertations)

Image Repositories (photographs, maps)

Multimedia (Audio/Video) repositories

Government records

Learning content object Archives

Encyclopaedic collections

Historical, religious and cultural archives (manuscripts)

Music and arts collections





Key advantages of implementing DSpace include:



It is Open Source and therefore there are no License Cost

Completely customizable to suit different needs

Supports international Meta Data standards including:

Resource Identifier – CNRI Handles - Handle System is a technology specification for assigning, managing, and resolving persistent identifiers for digital objects and other resources on the Internet. CNRI Handles assign unique handles to each digital object which helps them in easy retrieval

OAI – PMH v 2.0 - Open Archives Initiatives- Protocol for Metadata harvesting is a standard for metadata harvesting. Thus service providers of digital libraries can collect metadata, index them and provide them better search results.

Can manage and preserve all types of digital content

Ecole Solutions offers, complete end-to-end services to help libraries implement digital libraries using DSpace. The services include:



Pre-Implementation consulting including work-flow processes, system requirements

Installation

Training

Configuration

Customization

Post-implementation support and upgrades