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NATIONAL SCIENCE LIBRARY (NSL) INSDOC's National Science Library (NSL) has one of the best collections in the country in the field of information science, documentation and library science. NSL's collection of 1,50,000 includes books, reference materials, proceedings of conferences/seminars,symposia (in the field of S&T), foreign language dictionaries, Russian monographs, etc. It has more than 4000 Indian and foreign periodicals in both print and electronic format, US Patents, etc. Institutional Membership of NSL:
LIBRARY VISION With the advent of electronic information era and network based information
services, libraries all over the world are computerising their services
and converting their library resources to electronic form. India is estimated
to have around 65,000 libraries that include public libraries, college
libraries, university libraries, and departmental and other libraries.
Computerisation of library services has been slow in India so far and
it is expected to turn into a movement in the coming years given the requisite
attention and fillip. INSDOC's vision of how the libraries are evolving the world over and the current status in India are summed up in the following table: |
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| Library Type | Characteristics | Current Status |
| Traditional Library | Holdings in hard copy form. No Computerisation | >97% libraries |
| Automated Library | Automation of library functions. Computerised catalogue, circulation, acquisition etc. Holdings mostly in print form. A few electronic resources. | <3% libraries |
| Electronic Library | Fully Automated functions. CD-ROM networking. Resouces in Electronic and conventional form. |
<100 libraries |
| Digital Library | Fully automated. All resources in digital form. High speed optical fibre LAN. | Experimental |
| Virtual Library | Library without walls. Provides access to resources. Library without resources. | Research |
ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES AND CD-ROM
NETWORKING
| Automated Libraries are slowly evolving to Electronic Libraries characterised by large scale CD-ROM networking. With the increasing trend in electronic publications particularly on CD-ROMs and networks, INSDOC has been advocating the coversion of automated libraries into electronic libraries. |  |
| The Electronic Library Division of INSDOC now has a rich collection of more than 3,000 full text journals, patents, conference proceedings etc. on CD-ROMs. The division houses a CD-ROM facility consisting of a 4-drive tower, a 6-slot mini-changer(jukebox) and five pentium systems. Plans are underway to establish a large CD-ROM network with 25-50 workstations using a 28/56-tower drive. Several cost-effective services like the Full Text Journal Service, Standing Order Abstracts Service and Chemical Abstracts Keyword Index Service are provided from the Electronic Library Division. |
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CD-ROM networking is an area of research interest to INSDOC. The appropriateness of tower and jukebox technologies for different library environments has been studied and several access architectures have been evaluated. INSDOC has gained adequate expertise to design and establish cable or optical fibre LANs with CD-Server, File Server, Internet Server etc. |
