Mumbai gets its First Digital Library

Mumbai gets its First Digital Library

Pankhuri Bajaj, Aug 18, 2009 1901 hrs IST

Bridging the digital divide

Mumbai now has its very first fully-loaded State Central Library Digital Centre; courtesy: the Government of Maharashtra. This state-of-the-art library is housed in a 3-storey building in Andheri East. The facilities provided in this library are open to all and are for free.

What's a Digital Library?

While a digital library is typically a library that stores content stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media) and accessible by computers, this library consists of printed reading material as well.

Other than digital content via CD/DVD-ROMs and the Internet, this Digital Library also houses select books on various topics like art, politics, history, technology, history, etc. Further, there's a whole array of help books/digital content for students preparing for various entrance exams.

Structure

The digital library has been the brainchild of Andheri East MLA Suresh Shetty, who is also Maharashtra's minister of state of higher and technical education. If you like the decor of the library, you should know that he had a say in it.

Dr. BE Sananse, librarian of the Digital Library, was kind enough to give us a tour of this exclusive library just before it was inaugurated.

The ground floor houses an an Xbox 360, a multimedia-capable computer for kids to view digital content (Encyclopedias, movies, games, study material) from the selection available. There are books also in Hindi, English and Marathi.

This area of the library is meant for children and senior citizens, although it is unlikely for someone to object your presence there if you don't fall in that age group.

The first floor is a regular library with has 48 LCD computers with internet connectivity via MTNL Triband. The library consists of 200 CDs, DVDs and specialized legal database covering databases of DELNET, Manuputra (legal database covering supreme court judgments 1950 onwards) and British Council Library (BCL) meant for researchers and scholars to utilize the centre.

In case you're wondering about the computer configuration, you'll be pleased to know that all of the HCL computers installed there are powered by Intel Core2 Duo 3Ghz CPU, 2GB Ram, and Windows XP Service Pack 3.

The second floor is again has more books and there's more space, what looks like space for computer workstations, but the librarian insists it's meant for people to read books. Fair enough!

The third floor is an Audio-Visual, or AV room, fully equipped with a computer, a projector, and speakers. Adjoining this large space is the swanky office of the librarian, Dr. BE Sananse. He was kind enough to give me a tour of this exclusive library just before it was inaugurated.

And yes, when you do visit the place, do not miss the lovely cafeteria on the third floor. Once they have the coffee vending machine in place, it should be a delight to relax after a good read over here.