Date:07/11/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/11/07/stories/2009110753690300.htm

Kerala - Kozhikode

Workshop on digital library software

Staff Reporter

KOZHIKODE: An international workshop on UNESCO’s open source ‘Greenstone’ digital library software will be held at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIM-K) from November 23 to 28.

IIM-K Director Debashis Chatterjee will inaugurate the workshop. Padma Vibhushan V. Rajaraman, formerly Professor, popularly known as the father of computer science in India, will deliver the keynote address. Around thirty participants, including those from Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, will be admitted.

The Greenstone software is a top-of-the-line and internationally renowned one promoted by the New Zealand Digital Library Project Research Group at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Greenstone is an open-source software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence.

The aim of the software is to empower users, particularly universities, libraries and other public service institutions, to build their own digital libraries. The workshop will see a six-day rigorous and advanced training programme, coupled with state-of-art lectures by doyens in the field.

The Centre for Development of Digital Libraries (CCDL) at IIM-K has the distinction of coordinating the Greenstone support for South Asia for the past three years, on behalf on UNESCO.

The workshop will be offered by a team led by M.G. Sreekumar, UNESCO coordinator, Greenstone Support for South Asia and head librarian at IIM-K.

Participants will get to know about designing digital collections of different publications in a variety of file formats. They will also get to do assignments in designing prototypes of library information systems.

For details contact ‘FDP Office, IIM-K, IIM-K Campus PO, Kozhikode-673 570. The phone numbers are: 0495-280 9140 and 94471 00539. The mail id is: fdp@iimk.ac.in.