South Asia: Renovating the National Collection

A Guide to Selected Indian and Bangladesh Library and Information Resources


Higher Education and University Libraries

Dhaka University
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
SNDT Women’s University
University of Mumbai

Dhaka University

Dhaka University
Dhaka 1000
BANGLADESH

Telephone: +880 2 505789, 505700
Facsimile: +880 2 865583
E-mail:
URL:

Contact Person/s: Dr Md. Serajul Islam (Librarian)

Institution

Background / History

The University has nine faculties including Sociology, Social Sciences, Law, Arts, Biological Sciences, Pharmacy and Applied Chemistry. These faculties are divided into are 42 departments with 28,000 students. Sociology is the biggest department. The Departments have their own libraries in addition to the University Library.

Library

There are several different buildings that house the collections on the campus.

The Library has the following sections: binding, acquisitions, processing, administration, manuscripts, film and photocopying, government publications and rare books (purchase and gift). Document Delivery Services (DDS) and Inter-Library-Loans (ILL) are arranged with other Bangladesh libraries.

Collection

Each year 8,000 titles are purchased from overseas, mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States. Tk. 600,000 is spent on books and subscriptions to 250 serial titles. 100 serial titles are received as gifts.

The Library is a deposit Library for United Nations (UN) material and acquire microfilm and fiche from the British Lending Library.

Although the collection is mainly in Bengali and English, they also have a large collection of ancient and mediaeval manuscripts in Sanskrit, Bengali, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Marathi, Hindi and Oriya.

Manuscripts are procured from private collections and they have an impressive collection of very old manuscripts dating from the 15th Century. They also have a 30,000 microfilm collection of manuscripts that are difficult and expensive to preserve. The Library is very proud of owning an early manuscript of the Bhagavad Gita.

Negotiations are taking place with the National Library of Bangladesh for sharing resources. Faculty members in the Departments do the selection and the library staff select the reference material.

Staff

There are 220 staff of whom 40 are professional and some are para-professional.

Services

The Library provides the central facsimilie and email services for the entire university. The students can borrow items from the collection.

Vacuum encapsulation is used for preservation. Some 15th Century Sanskrit manuscripts are each individually wrapped in blue cloth and kept in glass cupboards.

Automation

The library hopes to computerise by 1998, by developing an in-house system.

Opening Hours and Access

The opening hours are from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm for Reader Services and are closed on Fridays.

Overseas researchers need to write to the librarian for permission to use the library.

Publications

They have published Alpha index for Sanskrit MSS in Dhaka University Library. This has an author and subject index.

Documents Held by the Project


Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)

Maidan Garhi
New Delhi 110 068
INDIA

Telephone: +91 11 696 2797
Facsimile: 91 11 686 2312
E-mail: ignou@delnet.ren.nic.in
URL:

Contact Person/s: Dr Neela Jagannathan (University Librarian)

Institution

Background / History

The IGNOU, founded 1985, is modeled on the Open University in the United Kingdom with which it has had staff exchanges. Courses in almost all disciplines ranging from those which require no previous certificated schooling through to postgraduate study. Students with no formal qualifications are required to sit an entrance test then undertake a three month prepatory course which is designed to bring them up to school leaver level. Currently there are over 300,000 enrolled students undertaking a variety of courses.

The INGOU operates seventeen regional centres and over 250 study centres throughout the country. The study centres are used for tutoring and counseling and for the provision of materials for reference and practical work. All course materials are prepared in Delhi and sent by post to regional centres and individual students. Both English and Hindi are used as the medium of instruction.

Funding

IGNOU is centrally funded by the Department of Human Resource. Additional funding is sourced from overseas aid and student fees.

Library

The library is housed in temporary accommodation until a purpose built building is completed in 1998. There are no students on the campus so the library is used mainly by academics and other staff. However, with over 30,000 students in Delhi the library is considering allowing access to students after completion of the new building.

Collection

Selection for the library is undertaken by academic staff in consultation with professional library staff. The library currently holds 54,000 monographs and over 400 periodical titles. The library also holds back-sets of all course materials produced by the university. Clients use a card catalogue however, there is a computer based catalogue under development using LibSys software. Currently funding for the library is set at Rp. 3.5 million for books and Rp. 2 million for journals.

Electronic Media Production Centre

Produces audiovisual materials to supplement course material and also provides videoconferencing facilities to all regional centres and some study centres. There is a plan to expand this service to all study centres. The Electronic Media Centre also utilizes broadcast Television (and radio in some remote areas) for delivering courses. Facilities at the centre include audiovisual laboratories, teleconferencing facilities, audio editing laboratories, video editing suites, and a recording studio. All equipment is considered state-of-the-art and was acquired with the assistance of the Japanese Government. The centre’s video library contains over 550 master Beta video tapes which can be transferred to VHS.

Automation

They are a member of Delnet (see entry) and uses LibSys software for some library tasks.

Opening Hours and Access

Contact library for details.

Documents Held by the Project


SNDT Women’s University

1 Nathibai Thackersey Road
New Marine Lines
Mumbai/Bombay 400 020
Santacruz Campus
Sir Vithaldas Vidyavihar, Juhu Road, Santacruz (West), Mumbai/Bombay 400 049

Telephone: +91 22 2085439, 2031879
+91 22 6131163 (Santacruz campus)
Facsimile: +91 22 2080404
E-mail: sndt.cgate@lwbbs.net
URL:

Contact Person/s:
Harash Parekh (University Librarian & Head SNDT School of Library Science)
Mrs Maya S. Sanant (Assistant Librarian)

Institution

Background / History

SNDT Women’s University has two campuses. More Details needed

Funding

The University Grants Commission (UGC) funds SNDT.

Library

The SNDT Library occupies two floors of a city building with limited room so a verandah has been enclosed to accommodate current serial publications as well as providing additional working space for students.

Collection

The collection specialises in the social sciences, arts and commerce and includes materials in English, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit. The collection is card catalogued using Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2). There are plans to replace the card catalogue with an automated system.

Services

Services offered include literature searches and quarterly alerting bulletins tailored to individual interest profiles. There is a photocopying service and an inter-library-loan service as well as user access to on-line remote databases. The library also offers a fee based service that compiles bibliographies for seminars and workshops. The SNDT Library is also responsible for the National Documentation Centre which was established by the UGC to improve information access and bibliographic support for the academic community.

Automation

The library is not connected to any network beyond the library building. However there are plans to extend the network beyond the library in the next two years. An Internet site is under development.

Opening Hours and Access

The library is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm, Saturdays from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and Sundays and selected holidays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Publications

The library publishes the SUCHAK CD-ROM.

Documents Held by the Project


University of Mumbai

J. N. Library
Santacruz (East) Vidyanagari, Kalina
Mumbai/Bombay 400 098
Fort Campus
Rajabai Tower Building
K.B. Patil Marg, Fort
Mumbai/Bombay 400 032
INDIA

Telephone: +91 22 6183201 (Santacruz Campus)
+91 22 2673621 (Fort Campus)
Facsimile:
E-mail:
URL:

Contact Person/s:
Dr. S. R. Ganpule (Professor and Head, Department of Library Science & University Librarian)
Vijaya Rajhansa (Reader & Deputy Librarian)

Institution

Background / History

The University of Bombay was established in 1857. Initially, the institution was an examination body with all teaching conducted in colleges. Due to overcrowding the university established a campus at Santacruz in 1967. There are currently 4,000 students enrolled at the university along with 400 faculty teaching staff.

Funding

The main component of the university’s funding is from the University Grants Commission (UGC). However twenty percent is generated by the university, a proportion of which is given to the library.

Library

The library took shape over a ten year period after the establishment of the University. The original library was housed in the city centre (Fort campus) in a splendid Gothic clock tower which now houses the rarer materials. The original library was developed to supplement the collections of the college libraries. The Santacruz campus library building was purpose-built with five wings for each of the branches of knowledge.

Collection

It is an open access collection with reading rooms and stack merged. The collection consists of 800,000 books primarily in English but there are also many Sanskrit and Marathi manuscripts. In addition to the books there are also 5,000 serial titles, with 100,000 back volumes from 1860 to1865. There is a coin, map, old print newspapers and clipping collection. Academic selections are monitored to prevent bias and to ensure that the collections support the curriculum The collection is continuing to grow from both acquisitions and scholars’ donations. The library uses Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) for cataloguing and Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Classification system.

Funding

The University Library has an allocation of 300 million rupees per annum from the Indian Government’s University Grants Committee (UGC) and also raises funds via library fines and charges and from the sale of publications. The library allocates each faculty a budget for the acquisition of new materials. The allocation is based on a formula which takes into account book-use statistics, projects in hand and the previous year’s budget.

Staff

There are just over one hundred staff including forty five professionals.

Services

Services offered include free document delivery of monographs not in the university collection, inter-library-loan service (ILL), (overseas ILL queries are sent to the British Library) and a fee-based photocopying service. Loans are available to the university’s faculties and college libraries free of charge. A microfilming project conducted by the Library of Congress is filming rare books in English and Indian languages.

Automation

There is no automation as yet, however, in the longer term they plan to join INFLIBNET (see entry) and implement the SLIM system.

Opening Hours and Access

They open from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm and from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm during the examination period. Overseas scholars should contact the library for access details.

Publications

The University publication program has journals which are made available for exchange.

Documents Held by the Project


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Last updated 23 December 1998
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