Dear fellow professionals Vidyanidhi is a pioneering cooperative effort under the leadership of Prof. Shalini. Her efforts in visualizing and realizing the project should be be very much appreciated. The Four University libraries (Jadavpur University, University of Kashmir, University of Hyderabad, Jamia Millia Islamia) and NASSDOC, who became members of this project by contributing their Theses and Dissertations also deserve to be appreciated. We should encourage such efforts, whoever is making and contributing to the Indian knowledge base of research output.  Dr. Rama Reddy ________________________________ From: Ramachandran Guruprasad To: LIS-Forum ; lis-forum-request@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in; shalini@isim.ac.in Sent: Wednesday, 5 October 2011 11:21 AM Subject: [LIS-Forum] Fwd: University of Hyderabad – VC’s blog on Open Access and Vidyanidhi Dear LIS Professionals, In response to Prof. Shalini's note on Vidyanidhi Digital Library, I as a former research scholar at the Department of Studies, Library and Information, University of Mysore wish to give my personal views on this: ================================= Vidyanidhi's effort in digitizing Indian Theses and Dissertations is undoubtedly a pioneering and to my knowledge India's first initiative in making a large number of doctoral theses online and digital. More than making this rich knowledge available to research scholars, what is really important to be noted is that this excellent initiative was started many years back when the network, digitization and internet technologies were still scant and in its infancy. I myself have been a huge beneficiary of this excellent repository when I was referring related literature during my tenure as a research scholar at the Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore. It is very difficult to express in that many words the immense benefits that I got through Vidyanidhi. Enhancing my feelings a little further, this is an outstanding contribution to the research knowledgebase of India. And this effort has seen the 'Light of the Day' only due to your untiring guiding efforts and with the support of your dedicated team (very small in number, if I get it right). Many tall claims can be made by others, but the actual reality points out to a small room in the Library Building of the University of Mysore where all the magic was happening. Sadly, there has not been a consortia effort from other Indian Universities to eventually make this as a role model of India. The bottom line lies with 'unwilling to share and part with information', 'afraid to go into a collaborative effort - because of the fear that your credit will go away', 'and why I should give my data to someone else'. This inner fear is the real killer. Vidyanidhi will continue to inspire research scholars generaration after generation in spite of all the hurdles that it has faced all through in sustaining this outstanding effort all these years. The entire team of Vidyanidhi Digital Library championed and led by Prof. Shalini URS, Prof. DOS, LIS and Executive Director, ISIM needs to lauded in every way and in my personal view this is absolutely an outstanding contribution to research scholars across the country. I am very proud to have used this facility and I can go one step in saying that this is a 'Kohinoor' of the University of Mysore. *** I request my views be kindly posted in LIS-Forum. Dr R Guruprasad Former Research Scholar, DOS, LIS, University of Mysore and Scientist, NAL, Bangalore ================================================= ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Shalini Urs Date: Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 1:46 PM Subject: [LIS-Forum] University of Hyderabad – VC’s blog on Open Access and Vidyanidhi To: LIS-Forum , lis-forum-bounces < lis-forum-bounces@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in>, Ram Ramaswamy Dear Friends, Read this blog : http://hcurocks.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/open-access-scholarship/ I am happy to share this blog post about Open Access and Vidyanidhi Digital Library by one of the early champions of Open Access including ETD (Electronic Theses and Dissertations) movement in India—Prof. Ram Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad.  Prof. Ramswamy (then professor and Dean at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) with whom I had the privilege of interacting during my efforts way back in 2003, to enlist the support of different universities in India to join hands with Vidyanidhi Digital Library initiative (www.vidyanidhi.org.in). He was one of those academics who showed lots of enthusiasm and championed the cause of Open Access and ETDs. Though JNU did not join Vidyanidhi (despite several efforts and meetings), Prof. Ramaswamy gave away all his students’ theses to Vidyanidhi. Please also do not forget read his blog about S.R.Ranganathan http://hcurocks.wordpress.com//?s=ranganathan&search=Go We need more academics and VCs who blog and share their thoughts on scholarship issues. May his tribe increase! In line with his belief about making things happen and to reach academic books reach a wider audience, Prof. Ramaswamy is also associated with the Scholars Without Borders initiative -  http://www.swb.co.in/ which has been striving to help deliver books across the world. Let me take this opportunity to share the vignettes of Vidyanidhi. Vidyanidhi began championing the cause of Open Access and ETD way back in 1999 and the Vidyanidhi project funded by the then NISSAT was initiated in 2000. We expanded with funding from Ford Foundation in 2003. Vidyanidhi is one of the earliest and long-standing online digital libraries. We are online since 2001 (contrary to the claims by Mahatma Gandhi University Library that their online theses library-www.Mgutheses.org is the first – though started in 2008☺ It is the decennial of Vidyanidhi!  We have been online without a break for 10 years.  So we can perhaps  claim that  it is one of the longest surviving online libraries in India. We are still the largest digital library of Indian Theses with more than 12,000 full texts available online. We were the first online library to  offer a Unicode compliant system to access Indian Language Database and automatic transliteration of Kannada and Hindi metadata. It is due to our championing and advocacy efforts that the UGC adopted the ETD policy in 2005 and current move towards the ETD repository initiative. Shalini -- Dr. Shalini R.Urs Executive Director and Professor International School of Information Management University of Mysore Manasagangotri Mysore - 570006 Phone :  + 91 821 2514699 Fax      :  +  91 821 2519209 www.isim.ac.in ISiM - Management School of IT. Technology School for IM -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.