In an effort to keep up with the times and make more resources available online to students, the Delhi University Central library has digitised 8,300 PhD theses submitted by scholars. The Central library has also digitised 14,388 copyright expired books from its collection, including many rare volumes and uploaded them online for public use.
“Although the project of digitising PhD has been completed, out of 12,000 books collection, 6,000 is done and 2,000 are in the process. Besides the library members, general public can read the articles and book content online. You just have to log in on crl.du.ac.in/Digitalcollection.htm and download the desired material you want to read on the site,” says an official from the Delhi University Central Library.
The digitised collection of books includes books on life sciences, art and literature, fiction and drama, manuscripts and old course books. And students and teachers are upbeat about getting access to online journals covering wide range of subjects. “It’s a progressive move as such online references will be easily available to students. It will help improve the quality of research. I really love reading old books but they’re hard to find. It is great that now we’ll be able to find such books easily on the website,” says Megha Seth, a college student.
“It’s obviously a very good opportunity. It’s the first time that Central Library of India is digitising all the significant literary, artistic, and scientific works and making them freely available to all. It’s a great move for the future generation and even teachers can use it for their reference. But I think that along with old books, new books should also be digitised,” says Poonam Sengupta, a teacher and avid reader.