Information And Library Network

Introduction

A network is developed when a group of libraries and information centers have common interest 

to exchange information through computer and communication technology. A library network is 

a collective or cooperative activity of linking members/users to the resources hosted on 

computers by means of telecommunication connections. (Lihitkar, n.d.)

Definition of Network 

UNISIST II working document, defines Information network as “a set on interrelated 

information systems associated with communication facilities, which are co-operating through 

more or less formal agreements in order to jointly implement information handling operations 

with a view to pooling their resources and to offer better services to the users. They generally 

follow identical or compatible rules and procedures.” (Lihitkar, n.d.)

Objectives of Networks 

 Promote sharing of resources among the participating libraries through computer 

networking. 

 Facilitate and promote delivery of documents electronically facilitate and promote 

delivery of documents electronically. 

 Co-ordinate efforts for suitable collection development and reduce unnecessary 

duplication of costly books and periodicals. 

 Establish referral centers to monitor and facilitate catalogue search and maintain a central 

on-line union catalogue of books, serials and non-book materials of all the participating 

libraries. 

 Develop specialist bibliographic database of books, serials and non-book materials for 

search and access. 

 Create a database of projects, specialists and institutions for providing online information 

services. Create a database of projects, specialists and institutions for providing online 

information services. 

 Co-ordinate with other regional, national and international networks for exchange of 

information and documents for the use of libraries and users.

evolve standards and uniform guidelines in techniques, methods, procedures, hardware

and software, services and so on and promote adoption in actual practice by all libraries,

in order to facilitate pooling, sharing and exchanging resources and facilities promote

adoption in actual practice by all libraries, in order to facilitate pooling, sharing and

exchanging resources and facilities towards optimization. (Lihitkar, n.d.)

Function of Networks

 Functions of Library Networks

 Information services to users

 Technical services to member

 Libraries Management of network

 Administration (Lihitkar, n.d.)

Classification of Networks

1. Classification of Networks Based on Utility Criterion

 Resource sharing network: If the main purpose of the network is resource sharing

and other applications are subordinate then the network is considered as resource

sharing network.

 Data sharing network: The networks provide access to unique databases from

workstations situated at distance apart. Eg. Remote access to Stock Exchange data

or Hotel and Airline reservation system.

 Communication and data exchange networks: The networks allow users to

exchange data, graph or documents and to communicate with each other using such

devices as electronic mail, bulletin board, etc. (Lihitkar, n.d.)

2. Classification of Networks based on User Community

 Private Networks: These networks are usually owned by some co-operation of

other entity that controls access and use of network services to its staff.

 Public Networks: These networks offer networking or network services to

public, that is to any individual or organization that becomes the member or

subscribes. For example telephone system.

 Co-operative Networks: These networks are managed and supported by their

users. (Lihitkar, n.d.)

3. Classification based on Network Architectures and Protocols.

 Switched Networks: The physical path between source and destination must be

established before data can be transmitted.

 Broadcast Networks: Broadcast systems have no intermediate switching nodes.

All stations share a single transmission channel; packets transmitted by one station

are received by all other stations. (Lihitkar, n.d.)

4. Classification of Networks based on Network Topologies

 Star network

 Hierarchical network

 Distributed network

 Ring Network (Lihitkar, n.d.)

5. Classification of Networks based on Geographical Area covered

 LAN

 MAN

 WAN (Lihitkar, n.d.)

Categories of Networks

1. General Networks in India

 INDONET (Data Network)

 NICNET(National Information Centre Network)

 OPNET (Open Education network)

 VIKRAM

 OILCOMNET

 RAILNET

 Indian Airlines Network

2. Specialized Networks

 BTISNET (Biotechnology Information Systems Network)

 CSIRNET (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Network)

 DESINET (Defense Scientific Information Network)

 ERNET (Education and Research Network)

 INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network)

3. Metropolitan Area Networks

 ADINET (Ahamedabad Network)

 CALIBNET (Calcutta Library Network)

 DELNET (Developing Library Network)

 MALIBNET (Madras Library Network)

 MYLIBNET (Mysore Library Network) (Lihitkar, n.d.)

INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network)

History

Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre, Gandhinagar is an Autonomous Inter-

University Centre (IUC) of University Grants Commission, New Delhi (Ministry of Education,

Govt. of India). It is a major National Programme initiated by the UGC in March 1991 as a

project under the IUCAA, it became an independent Inter-University Centre in June 1996.

INFLIBNET is involved in modernizing university libraries in India using the state-of-art

technologies for the optimum utilisation of information. (INFLIBNET, n.d.)

OBJECTIVE AND FUNCTIONS

 To promote and establish communication facilities to improve capability in information

transfer and access, that provide support to scholarship, learning, research and academic

pursuit through cooperation and involvement of agencies concerned.

 To establish INFLIBNET: Information and Library Network a computer communication

network for linking libraries and information centres in universities, deemed to be

universities, colleges, UGC information centres, institutions of national importance and R &

D institutions, etc. avoiding duplication of efforts.

I. to promote and implement computerization of operations and services in the

libraries and information centres of the country, following a uniform standard;

II. to evolve standards and uniform guidelines in techniques, methods, procedures,

computer hardware and software, services and promote their adoption in actual

practice by all libraries, in order to facilitate pooling, sharing and exchange of

information towards optimal use of resources and facilities:

III. to evolve a national network interconnecting various libraries and information

centres in the country and to improve capability in information handling and

service;

IV. to provide reliable access to document collection of libraries by creating on-line

union catalogue of serials, theses/ dissertations, books, monographs and non-book

materials (manuscripts, audio-visuals, computer data, multimedia, etc.) in various

libraries in India:

V. to provide access to bibliographic information sources with citations, abstracts,

etc. through indigenously created databases of the Sectoral Information Centres of

NISSAT, UGC Information Centres, City Networks and such others and by

establishing gateways for on-line accessing of national and international databases

held by national and international information networks and centres respectively;

VI. to develop new methods and techniques for archival of valuable information

available as manuscripts and information documents in difference Indian

languages, in the form of digital images using high density storage media;

VII. to optimize information resource utilization through shared cataloguing, inter-

library loan service, catalogue production, collection development and thus

avoiding duplication in acquisition to the extent possible;

VIII. to enable the users dispersed all over the country, irrespective of location and

distance, to have access to information regarding serials, theses/dissertation,

books, monographic and non-book materials by locating the sources wherefrom

available and to obtain it through the facilities of INFLIBNET and union

catalogue of documents;

IX. to create databases of projects, institutions, specialists, etc. for providing on-line

information service;

X. to encourage co-operation among libraries, documentation centres and

information centres in the country, so that the resources can be poled for the

benefit of helping the weaker resource centres by stronger ones; and

XI. to train and develop human resources in the field of computerized library

operations and networking to establish, manage and sustain INFLIBNET.

 To facilitate academic communication amongst scientist, engineers, social scientists,

academics, faculties, researchers and students through electronic mail, file transfer,

computer/audio/video conferencing, etc

 To undertake system design and studies in the field of communications, computer

networking, information handling and data management;

 To establish appropriate control and monitoring system for the communication network

and organize maintenance;

 To collaborate with institutions, libraries, information centres and other organizations in

India and abroad in the field relevant to the objectives of the Centre;

 To promote R&D and develop necessary facilities and create technical positions for

realizing the objectives of the Centre;

 To generate revenue by providing consultancies and information services; and

To do all other such things as may be necessary, incidental or conducive to the attainment

of all or any of the above objectives. (INFLIBNET,2021)

Mission and Vision

 Leveraging on the latest technology, create a virtual network of people and resources in

academic institutions with an aim to provide effective and efficient access to knowledge

through preserverance, innovation and collaboration.

 Provide seamless, reliable and ubiquitous access to scholarly, peer-reviewed electronic

resources to the academic community in all educational institutions with a focus on services

and tools, processes and practices that support its effective use and increase value of this

information.

 Build and strengthen ICT infrastructure in educational institutions with value-added

services.

 Develop tools, techniques and procedures for secure and convenient access management

enabling users to access information in electronic format from any where, anytime.

 Develop resource selection guides and online tutorials for effective delivery and usage of

e-resources.

 Facilitate creation of open access digital repositories in every educational institutions for

hosting educational and research contents created by these institutions.

 OUR GOALS

 Achieve complete automation of libraries in educational institutions

 Create union catalogues of documents available in libraries in online and real-time

environment.

 Provide seamless and ubiquitous access to scholarly, peer-reviewed electronic resources

to the universities.

 Promote digitization of legacy documents and creation of content in e-format (including

electronic theses and dissertations, electronic version of research articles, working papers,

technical reports, concept papers, technical reports, annual reports, statistical data, etc.) in

universities.

 Promote setting-up of open access digital repositories in universities for hosting content

created in the process mentioned above.

 Develop expertise in

 Digital content creation;

 Process of digitization; and

 Managing digital depositories.

 Impart training in applications on various aspects of new technology to achieve goals

mentioned above.

ACTIVITIES & SERVICES

 IndCat

IndCat is a free online Union Catalogue of Books, Theses and Serials of major

university/institute libraries in India

 SOUL 3.0

Software for University Libraries (SOUL) is an state-of-the-art integrated library management

software designed and developed by the INFLIBNET Centre based on requirements of college

and university libraries. It is a user-friendly software developed to work under client-server

environment. The software is compliant to international standards for bibliographic formats,

networking and circulation protocols. After a comprehensive study, discussions and deliberations

with the senior professionals of the country, the software was designed to automate all house

keeping operations in library.

 e-ShodhSindhu

Based on the recommendation of an Expert Committee, the Ministry of HRD (now renamed as

Ministry of Education) has formed e-ShodhSindhu merging three consortia initiatives, namely

UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium, NLIST and INDEST-AICTE Consortium.The e-

ShodhSindhu will continue to provide current as well as archival access to more than 10,000 core

and peer-reviewed journals and a number of bibliographic, citation and factual databases in

different disciplines from a large number of publishers and aggregators to its member institutions

including centrally-funded technical institutions, universities and colleges that are covered under

12(B) and 2(f) Sections of the UGC Act.

 N-LIST

The Project entitled "National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly

Content (N-LIST)", being jointly executed by the e-ShodhSindhu Consortium, INFLIBNET

Centre and the INDEST-AICTE Consortium, IIT Delhi provides for i) cross-subscription to e-

resources subscribed by the two Consortia, i.e. subscription to INDEST-AICTE resources for

universities and e-ShodhSindhu resources for technical institutions; and ii) access to selected e-

resources to colleges. The N-LIST project provides access to e-resources to students, researchers

and faculty from colleges and other beneficiary institutions through server(s) installed at the

INFLIBNET Centre. The authorized users from colleges can now access e-resources and

download articles required by them directly from the publisher's website once they are duly

authenticated as authorized users through servers deployed at the INFLIBNET Centre.

 InfiStats

The InfiStats Usage Statistics Portal is developed by INFLIBNET Centre for monitoring the

usage statistics of various e-resources made accessible to the member institutes under e-Shodh

Sindhu Consortium. The InfiStats harvests the COUNTER Usage for members through SUSHI

Protocol. The InfiStats portal imports the usage data from the publisher's website. The InfiStats

interface provides journal title level usage to member institutes. The member institutions can also

login to this portal for monitoring the usage of their respective e-resources that are available to

them through central funding. The portal also provides an option to include the usage for self-

subscribed resources by the member institutions and monitor from the InfiStats portal.

 INFED

INDIAN Access Management Federation (INFED), the first Federation in India, has adopted

Shibboleth, a standard-based open source software, for authenticating authorized users from

colleges and universities and provide them seamless access to e-resources from anywhere,

anytime.

The INDIAN Centre, as one of its core mandates, provides access to scholarly e-resource to

universities and colleges in India under the e-ShodhSindhu. The INFED is being set-up as a

centralized agency to coordinate with member institutions in the process of implementation of

user authentication and access control mechanism distributed across participating institutions

using standardized rules and metadata for exchange of attributes.

 ShodhShuddhi

Based on the recommendation of Sub-Committee, National Steering Committee (NSC) of e-

ShodhSindhu, The Ministry of Education, Govt. of India has initiated a programme

"ShodhShuddhi" which provides access to Plagiarism Detection Software (PDS) to all

universities/Institutions in India since Sept 1, 2019.

Soudhganga

The Shodhganga@INFLIBNET Centre provides a platform for research students to deposit their

Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire scholarly community in open access. The

repository has the ability to capture, index, store, disseminate and preserve ETDs submitted by

the researchers.

 ShodhGangotri

The word “Shodh” originates from Sanskrit and stands for “research and

discovery”. “Gangotri” is one of the largest glacier in the Himalayas and source of origination of

Ganges, the holiest, longest and largest of rivers in India. The Ganges is the symbol of age-long

culture, civilization, ever-aging, ever-flowing, ever-loving and loved by its people.

Under the initiative called “ShodhGangotri”, research scholars / research supervisors in

universities are requested to deposit electronic version of approved synopsis submitted by

research scholars to the universities for registering themselves for the Ph.D programme Now it is

expanded to MRPs/PDFs/ Emeritus Fellowship etc. The repository on one hand, would reveal

the trends and directions of research being conducted in Indian universities, on the other hand it

would avoid duplication of research. Synopsis in “ShodhGangotri” would later be mapped to

full-text theses in "ShodhGanga". As such, once the full-text thesis is submitted for a synopsis, a

link to the full-text theses would be provided from ShodhGangotri to "ShodhGanga"

 Research Project DB

Research Project Database is details of the accomplished and ongoing funded projects, carried

out by various faculty members, working at various universities in India. Currently, it contains

more than 13600 research project's information funded by various funding agencies

viz. UGC, ICAR, ICMR, DST and DBT etc. The details of the project information have been

collected from the project directors, and funding agencies.

 Vidwan

VIDWAN is the premier database of profiles of scientists / researchers and other faculty

members working at leading academic institutions and other R & D organisation involved in

teaching and research in India. It provides important information about expert's background,

contact address, experience, scholarly publications, skills and accomplishments, researcher

identity, etc. The database developed and maintained by Information and Library Network

Centre (INFLIBNET) with financial support from the National Mission on Education through

ICT (NME-ICT). The database would be instrumental in selection of panels of experts for

various committees, taskforce, established by the Ministries / Govt. establishments for

monitoring and evaluation purposes.

 IRINS

IRINS is web-based Research Information Management (RIM) service developed by the

Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre. The portal facilitates the academic,

R&D organisations and faculty members, scientists to collect, curate and showcase the communication activities and provide an opportunity to create the scholarly network. The IRINS

is available as free software-as-service to the academic and R&D organisations in India.

The IRINS would support to integrate the existing research management system such as HR

system, course management, grant management system, institutional repository, open and

commercial citation databases, scholarly publishers, etc. It has integrated with academic identity

such as ORCID ID, ScopusID, Research ID, Microsoft Academic ID, Google Scholar ID for

ingesting the scholarly publication from various sources.

 ICSSR Data Service

The “ICSSR Data Service” is culmination of signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

between Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and Ministry of Statistics and

Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The MoU provides for setting-up of “ICSSR Data Service:

Social Science Data Repository” and host NSS and ASI datasets generated by MoSPI. The

ICSSR Data Service hosts a comprehensive set of statistical datasets in social sciences generated

and contributed by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), New

Delhi. Subsequently, scope of the repository would be expanded to include datasets from all

social science institutes under ICSSR's direct purview as well as Government agencies. The

ICSSR Data Service is set-up with an aim to support researchers, teachers and policymakers who

are heavily rely on high-quality social and economic data for their research.

 ILMS

ILMS i.e. INFLIBNET Learning Management Service offered by the Information and Library

Network Centre (An IUC of UGC) to the institutions of higher education across the country. This

service is being offered to all the Central, State and Deemed universities on request basis. It

provides pre-populated learning content, derived from e-PG Pathshala: A Gateway to PG

Courses, as per the prevailing guidelines of UGC.

 E-PG Pathshala

e-PG Pathshala is an initiative of the MHRD under its National Mission on Education through

ICT (NME-ICT) being executed by the UGC.

 Vidya-Mitra

The INFLIBNET Centre has developed a web-based interface called "Vidya-mitra: Integrated e-

Content Portal" for all e-content projects, developed / funded under the National Mission of

Education through ICT. There are more than 50 projects on e-content under NME-ICT which are

developed / being developed in various subject disciplines (science, arts, engineering, social

science, etc) through various Indian institutes / universities / colleges.

UGC-MOOCs

SWAYAM is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three

cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of this

effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged.

SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched

by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge

economy.

 SWAYAM Prabha

The SWAYAM PRABHA is a group of 34 DTH channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality

educational programmes on 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite. Every day, there will be

new content for at least (4) hours which would be repeated 5 more times in a day, allowing the

students to choose the time of their convenience. The channels are uplinked from BISAG,

Gandhinagar. The contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and

NIOS. The INFLIBNET Centre maintains the web portal.

 INFOPORT

INFLIBNET Subject Gateway for Indian Electronic Resources is designed to facilitate

registering of an Internet resource into the portal and extending its access to users. INFOPORT

supports browsing of Internet resources by Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Scheme.

 University Directory

 NIRF

The ranking framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country. The

INFLIBNET Centre is responsible for the development of NIRF Web Portal including data

capturing system, perception capturing system, the feedback mechanism and the ranking

platform. The Centre is also involved to provide and verify data on publications, citations,

patents and highly cited papers within India.

 ARIIA

Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) is an initiative of Ministry of

Education to systematically rank all major higher educational institutions and universities in

India based on indicators related to "Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development".

INFLIBNET Centre is serving as a technical partner to execute the assignment and also provided

patent data for all the applicant institutes.

 e-NBA 

The project, called “Accreditation Workflow Management System (AWMS)” is related to 

accreditation of technical institution’s programme. The Centre is involved to develop full-fledge 

online platform of accreditation workflow management system for technical institutes based on 

requirements provided by National Board of Accreditation. 

 NAAC 

The INFLIBNET Centre is awarded a project of validation and verification of bibliometric data 

for the HEIs undergoing the NAAC Accreditation. Under the project, the Centre is responsible to 

provide data for bibliometrics related elements for all applicants and also provides support and 

consultancy services for validation of bibliometrics data. 

 e-Governance@UGC 

The University Grants Commission assigned the responsibility for setting up IT Cell at UGC and 

development and maintenance of the website of the UGC as well as for automation of its various 

schemes, Grant Management System and e-Scholarship-Fellowship Award Registration 

Tracking System (e-SARTS). 

 PMMMNMTT 

The Scheme of Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching is the 

culmination of the Government of India efforts in launching a comprehensive umbrella scheme 

aimed at improving the quality of education at all levels by infusing quality and excellence in our 

teachers and teaching. Teachers are the backbone and the core of the education system. 

 Study in India 

The Centre is working on one of the important educational projects of MHRD which is being 

executed by the EdCIL. The EdCIL has assigned the task of design and development of the 

website and its web applications for "Study in India". 

 National Testing Agency 

The Centre is fully engaged to develop dedicated website of NTA with necessary dynamic and 

user-friendly modules including test practice centre module, admin module, mock test module, 

test admin Portal, exam centre module, TA admin module, admit card module and exam result 

module. 

 IR@INFLIBNET 

The Centre has established an institutional repository called IR@INFLBNET using DSpace, 

opensource software. The papers published in the proceedings of the CALIBER and PLANNER

are uploaded into the repository. The Repository also includes course materials, newspaper

clippings,etc(INFLIBNET,2021)

Publication

1. INFLIBNET Newsletters

 Quarterly Publication about Activities organized by INFLIBNET

2. Annual Reports (INFLIBNET, 2021)

Conculsion

 Networking has become necessary, it is not possible for a single library to procure the

full range of library resources required by their users, increasing cost and avoiding

duplication, colleges should have network. Colleges having similar subject areas should

come together and develop a networked environment.

 College librarians should take some initiatives to automate their libraries so that they can

keep space with changing trends of LIS. If they could complete the library automation stage

then they can build a network to have a global visibility.

 College librarians should know the existing networks available in India and also aboard

and take the membership of some of the functional networks to provide the information

services to their users in this global era. (INFLIBNET, 2021)

 References:-

1. Lihitkar, S. R. (n.d.). MAJOR LIBRARY AND INFORMATION NETWORKS IN INDIA.

RCLIS. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from

http://eprints.rclis.org/14210/1/Network_Nagbhid_Shalini-1.pdf

2. INFLIBNET. (2021). Inflibnet. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from

https://indcat.inflibnet.ac.in/index.php/main/about