INTERNATIONAL PE

RSPECTIVES· An Evaluation of Digital Libraries and

Institutional Repositories in Indiaby Manorama Tripathi and V.K.J. JeevanAvailable online 13 September 2011

INTRODUCTIONDigitization is becoming more common in library and informationcenters throughout India. India's former president Dr. APJ AbdulKalam, has even entered into the discussion by remarking that a“digital library is where past meets the present and creates a future.”1

With this current growth and interest in digital libraries andinstitutional repositories, it is useful to look at what is currentlybeing offered and what is in development. Universities and otherorganizations are spending large amounts of money on setting updigital libraries and institutional repositories. Therefore it is importantto find out how these are being used — and what kind of access theyprovide.

An evaluation of these projects will help to understand how theseinitiatives stand out in the global digital space, and may also illustratewhere individual digital libraries and repositories can improve andwhat steps should be taken to streamline them further in terms ofcollection, access and visibility.

This paper aims to provide an overview of digital libraries andinstitutional repositories in India and to evaluate their features usingcriteria established in other studies already conducted in India andinternationally. This may help to assess how each of the digitalfacilities rate on an international scale.

METHODOLOGY

This study evaluates and reviews four digital libraries and twentyinstitutional repositories from a mix of India's top universities,technology institutes and research institutes, which were selectedusing the Registry of Open Access Repositories.2 A full list of the digitallibraries and institutional repositories used can be found in AppendixA of Supplementary materials. Some of the digital libraries whichwere originally selected could not be included because their websiteswere not functioning.

Development of Evaluation Criteria UsedFernandez studied online repositories throughout India to trace

their growth and development by collecting data through interviews.3

Bhat evaluated nine open access repositories in the field of computer

Manorama Tripathi, Deputy Librarian, Jawaharlal Nehru University, NewMehrauli Road, New Delhi-110067, India<manoramatripathi2@yahoo.com>;V.K.J. Jeevan, Deputy Librarian, Indira Gandhi National Open UniversityMaidan Garhi, New Delhi-110068, India<vkjj@rediffmail.com>.

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science and information technology.4 The repositories were examinedusing the following criteria; content, preservation policies, rightsmanagement, promotion, services, and feedbackandaccess.Meyyappan,Chowdhury andFoo studied twentydigital librariesworldwideusing thecriteria of content, type of library, organization of information, userinterface, access, information retrieval, search features, output format,and links to other Internet resources.5 Jeng studied different academicdigital libraries and found that ease of use, satisfaction, efficiency, andeffectiveness are the most important criteria to use when evaluatingdigital libraries.6 The criteria used in this studywere developed based onthe findings above.

THE EVALUATION AND ITS FINDINGSCollection

Most of the institutions studied digitally archive post-prints andpreprints of research publications, annual reports, theses, andinstitutional publications in their institutional repository. Out of the20 institutional repositories included, the archive at the IndianInstitute of Science holds the largest collection with over 15,000documents followed by the National Institute of Science Communi-cation and Information Resources' online periodicals repository,and the repository of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics which hold5000 articles each. The institutional repositories of the RamanResearch Institute and the National Institute of Oceanography holdaround 3000 articles each. The repositories of the Indian Institute ofTechnology and the National Centre for Catalysis Research each holdaround 1500 documents and those at the National Institute ofTechnology and Mahatma Gandhi University have almost 1000items each. The repositories of the Electronic Theses and Dissertationsof Indian Institute of Science, the National Centre for Antarctica andOcean Research, ethesis at the National Institute of TechnologyRourkela and DSpace at the Indian Institute of Management,Kozhikode (IIMK) each have around 500 documents. Between 300and 400 items are archived in the repositories at both the NationalCentre for Radio Astrophysics, and the Madras Diabetes ResearchFoundation. The institutional repositories of the National Metallurgi-cal Laboratory and the Central Drug Research Institute each haveabout 200 documents while repositories at the Institute of MineralsandMaterials Technology and the School of Biotechnology at MaduraiKamaraj University each hold less than 100 items. (See Appendix Bof Supplementary materials, Table 1 for more information on size ofcollection, type of documents and subjects covered.)

A similar assessment of digital libraries is difficult to make asthe holdings are more complex. The Muktabodha Digital Library has210,000 pages of digital images and 2000 texts of rare manuscripts. TheKalasampada Digital Library has 1000 h of audio and video recordings,25,000 digitized copies of rare books and around 100,000 visual items.

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The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library has 218 scanned books andover 200,000 transcriptions; and finally the Archives of Indian Labourhas 400 h of taped interviews and 100,000 printed pages.

In summary, ten of the above libraries hold fewer than onethousand items and two have less than 100. However, four of thelibraries have more than 100,000 items. When compared to digitallibraries overseas such as, the American Memory of US Library ofCongress which has 9 million items,7 and the Internet Archive whichhas 4,500,303 items,8 Indian digital libraries have a long way to go inbuilding up their collections.

ContentFour of the libraries/repositories examined are exclusively for theses

anddissertationsand seventeenof themalsoholdpreprints, post-prints,working papers, conference papers, annual reports and technicalreports. Most of the digital libraries and institutional repositories tendto cover the subjects researched or taught at the parent organizationhowever, a small number of them cover a broader subject base.

Access FacilityAll of the digital libraries and institutional repositories included

in this study have mechanisms in place to control access to theircollections. Three different levels of access were observed: access isgranted only to the staff, students, and researchers of the parentorganization which hosts the repository; access is granted to thepublic to only part of the collection; and access is granted to the publicto the entire collection.

Some of the digital libraries/institutional repositories restrict accessto journal articles due to publishers' permissions policies however, insuch cases a ‘request a copy form’ is available.

All of the repositories permit free access to abstracts without anyregistration necessary. However, most of the repositories require theuser to register for accessing the full text item. Some digital librarieslimit full text access to an intranet due to agreements with publishersor owners of content. (See Appendix B of Supplementary materials,Table 2 for more information on access.)

Organization of InformationThe organization of information plays an important role in any

digital library or institutional repository, however the libraries aresomewhat bound by the software that they implement. Most of theprojects included in this study use DSpace or Eprints (see Appendix Bof Supplementary materials, Table 3). The features offered by thechosen software can be extended by the individual installers. Thismeans that even in cases where the same software was used, varyingconfigurations and customization was carried out so that the optionsand features offered by the repositories were different.

Most of the libraries examined organized information by commu-nity, collection, issue date, author, title, subject, year, keyword, scholar,guide, division, thesis supervisor, document type, and e-print type.Recent additions to the repository were usually highlighted. (SeeAppendix B of Supplementary materials, Table 2 for information onhow each repository organizes its information.)

Copyright InformationThere is a need to follow copyright laws while selecting materials

for digitization and establishing access policies for digital libraries andinstitutional repositories. The copyright statements on digital contentin libraries need to be clear. The libraries have a responsibility toprovide copyright information to the users and to educate them aboutthe fair use of digital collections.

Most of the digital libraries included in this study did not provideadequate copyright information, however the institutional reposito-ries did link to the SHERPA/ROMEO website which highlightsstandard university copyright policies.

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Usage Statistics and Feedback Mechanisms“We cannot call a digital-library or electronic-publishing system a

success if we cannot measure and interpret its use.”9 Twenty-one ofthe twenty-four digital libraries and institutional repositories exam-ined, do not provide usage statistics. The three that do includedetailed usage statistics by month that show how many documentswere uploaded, viewed and downloaded.

User satisfaction is essential for the success of a digital library. Toreflect this, libraries should invite comments and feedback from theirusers. Most of the repositories surveyed do not have any provisionfor users to provide feedback, however the four digital libraries didprovide contact information. Xie states that just providing contactinformation is not enough; it should be designed in a standard andconsistent manner and should be easily accessible to the users. Itshould open a channel of communication between the potentialusers and developers so that the use of the digital facility may beenhanced by continuously improving the functionalities as per theusers' needs.10

AccessibilityAccessibility of a website implies that the content should be

accessible to a wide range of people, including those with disabilitiessuch as, blindness or low vision, deafness or hearing loss, learningdisabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabil-ities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these.11 None of the 24digital libraries and institutional repositories studied included anyfeatures to accommodate disabilities.

Search InterfaceThe search interface determines the popularity and use of a digital

library or institutional repository. This study adopted the criteria usedbySmith toevaluate the search features of variousdigital libraries. Theseare: Boolean logic, phrase/proximity searching, relevancy ranking,browsing indexes, truncation, field searching, extent of searching, casesensitive searching, controlled vocabulary, language translation, date/range searching, refining of initial search, related items, multimediasearching, advanced/basic search facilities, display features, and help/documentation information.12

Most of the digital libraries and institutional repositories examinedin this study use DSpace or Eprints and are therefore dependent on thepredetermined search features included in these software packages.

CONCLUSION

Some of the digital libraries and institutional repositories includedin this study originated from a desire on the part of the libraryprofessionals or computer staff to increase the visibility of theirservices and work. It is difficult for such experimental initiatives togain the required thrust to succeed unless there is an institutionalpolicy and support in terms of funds and infrastructure. Institutionsshould be aware of the opportunities of open access and the need tocreate institutional repositories of in-house content to enhance thevisibility of the institution's intellectual property.

We have not attempted to be judgmental in regards to the facilitiesand services provided by these digital libraries and institutionalrepositories. Instead we have summarized and highlighted their dif-ferent features and options. Most of the libraries studied are makinga good effort, subject to the constraints in which they operate andsome are constantly trying to further improve the facility. This is apositive sign of the importance of these initiatives to the people andinstitutions that developed them. The digital libraries and institu-tional repositories need to concentrate on improving their searchfeatures. This would lead to retrieval efficiency and more usability.They should also concentrate on improving their content coveragewhich is not so satisfactory with many of the digital repositories.

Ideally all these digital libraries and institutional repositoriesshould have been positively reviewed in each of the evaluationcriteria. Identifying a negative review in a category is the first step tounderstanding that there is scope for further improvement on thatcount. Following particular criteria recommendations would help toretrieve more relevant results, improve the content coverage, andenhance the usability of the facility. Thus the results of the study maybe relevant to the developer of the facility to illustrate what needs tobe done for the overall improvement of a locally developed digitalinformation facility.

The digital libraries and institutional repositories included in thisstudy need to strengthen and enlarge their collections as only a smallnumber of them have more than one thousand items. Even therepositories of those institutionswhich publish large numbers of papersin scholarly journals do not reflect this in their repositories. Organiza-tions should ensure their faculty members submit their articles andresearch papers to the institution's repositories by making depositmandatory. The digital libraries and institutional repositories should bemade more ‘accessible’ in order to ensure their reach extends to peoplewith disabilities. Finally, the digital libraries and repositories need totrain users in copyright and other intellectual property rights issues sothat these facilities are compliant with such rights.

APPENDIX A. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2011.08.012.

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11.Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, (2008) available at: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/ (accessed 24 July, 2011).

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