Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1991. 38(2). 39-52

LIBRARY NElWORKS IN INDIA

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Prof T VlSWANATHANRM17TALVVLAKSHMIIndian National Scientific Documentation CentreNew Delhi 110067

IN1RODUcnON

The importance of information asa vital resource intoday's society hardly needs to be emphasized.The increase in information generation at anestimated rate of 13% per annum hasmade the taskof collection, organisation and retrieval ofinformation very difficult. In addition, the escalat-ing costsof information products and serviceshavemade it mandatory for libraries to automate theirservices,and share the resources through network-ing. This is important for developing countries withsevere constraints in financial resources. In India,the need for resource sharing has been recognisedand suitable options are being explored. Resourcesharing can help in avoiding unnecessary dupli-cation of costly books, periodicals, etc.

In 1986a national policy on library and informationsystem was formulated wherein it was recom-mended that the national libraries should form anintegrated system for a better coordination of theiractivities and services. The Planning Commissionhad set up a working group on modcrnisation oflibrary and information services lor the Seventh FiveYear Plan (1985c90) to suggestmeasuresto networkimportant libraries in the country so that their re-sourcescould be shared for optimum utilisation. Theoutcome of this was the UGC report onInformation and Library Network (INFLIBNET)which proposed a mechanism to establish anetwork connecting universities, colleges,documentation centres, etc. in the country throughthe use of computer communication technology.

The National Information System for Science &Technology (NISSAT) under the Department ofScientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) initiateda feasibility study for the automation ami

Vol 38 No 2 June 1991

networking of about 381ibraries in Calcutta and 35libraries in Delhi by CMC Ltd, a public sectorcompany.

INFLlBNET (Information and Library Network)

India has 184universities and 23 institutions deemedto be universities. About 6100 colleges are attachedto these universities. The institutions of higherlearning have 3.58 million students enrolled forgraduate, post-graduate and research degrees.INFLIBNET is a co-operative networking effort ofthe University Grants Commission and is a com-puter communication network linking libraries andbibliographic in/ormation centres all over the coun-try. INFLIBNETis expected to improve informa-tion transfer and provide the scholars and research-ers an easyaccessto information. Major institutionsof higher learning and national organisations likeCouncil of Scientific & Industrial Research(CSIR), Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR), Defence Research & Development Organ-isation (DRDO), Indian Council of Medical Re-search (ICMR), Department of Atomic Energy,Department of Electronics (DOE), Department ofTelecommunication (DOT), Indira Gandhi Centreof Arts, etc. are participating in INFUBNET.

Though the libraries attached to the institutions ofhigher education spend over 1.5billion Rupees peryear for purchase of books and journals, the re-searcher is gravely handicapped due to paucity ofresources and services in the libraries. It is notpractical to make alllihraries self sufficient for theusersbelonging to multifarious disciplines. If userscan be provided access through a network to theholdings of other libraries situated at geographi-cally different places. the national resourcesare put10 an optimum use and simultaneasly, it is ensured

VISWANATIiAN, MmAL & lAKSHMI

that the libraries can avoid duplication in procuringcostly publications. Additionally, the academiccommunities in the country can establish instantcontact with each other for information exchange.

INFLIBNET is a multi-service network, offering

Catalogue based services,Database services,Document supply services,Communication based services, etc.

and operating at four different levels:-

National,Regional,Sectoral andLocal

The national Centre will coordinate the activities andservices of the network.

Each of the four regional centres will be housed in theUniversity libraries of the region and will maintainunion catalogues of the libraries in the region.

The Sectoral Information Centres will take careof the maintenance of retrospective bibliographicdatabases in specific missions or subjects.

The end users will be served mainly at the local level,i.e. the nodes at colleges, departments, universitiesand R&D institutions. 400 such nodes are plannedinitially.

Separately, 1(X) Document Resource Centres invarious university and R&D institutional librariesarc proposed to be set up for document deliveryservice (Fig I).

INFLIBNET will evolve standards based on theexisting national and international practices foruniform adoption throughout the network. Theserelate to 16 areas like classification, SUbject heading,cataloguing, input format, exchange format, physi-cal formal, information processing, etc.

A hybrid version of satellite and terrestrial net-working will be used as its communication system.The communication system will have a central nodeand 4(X) ground terminals at 150 university libraries,

40

50 autonomous colleges and 200 other institutionsincluding R&D institutions. The Document Re-source Centres and Sectoral Information Centres areto be interconnected via satellite links. Nodes in acity will be connected through Local Area Network(LAN). About nine million unique cataloguerecords of 179 university libraries will be unified intoa common catalogue database.

CALIBNET (Calcutta Libraries Network)

CALIBNET is envisaged to cover 38 science andtechnology libraries, big and small, in Calcutta Met-ropolitan area. From the point of view of spatialdistribution, most of them are found to be clusteredin the Jadavpur, Chowringhee, Rajabazar andBallygunge areas. A few libraries such as the medicallibraries, the National Library and the library ofIndian Statistical Institute (ISI), are located outsidethese clusters. The constituent libraries of theproposed network are expected to be first automatedand then networked.

Within the individual or nodal libraries, the functionsthatare to be automated are cataloguing, serialscontrol, acquisition, fund accounting, circulationand local user services. The network centre wouldprovide services such as Current Awareness, SOland Union Catalogue, and access to National andInternational networks. The main features ofCALIBNET are - online/offline input, editing, andretrieval of records. Users will be able to accessdatabases in real time using real time software.System will allow online requests for documents.

MARC format and AACR2 are recommenended forcreating the inhouse catalogue records and CCF,which is compatible to the ISO - 27(1) for exchangeof bibliographic data among the participating insti-tutions.

CALIBNET has been envisaged as a MetropolitanArea Network (MAN). Entire network is proposedto be carried out in two phases. In phase 1,institutions in the Jadavpur and Rajabazar clustersare to be covered. In phase 2, all other clustersand stand alone institutions will be connected to thenetwork (Fig. 1&2). The library network at Calcuttawill be connected to similar networks in Delhi,Bombay, Madras and other major cities using inter-city PSDN. The network will have access to the

Ann Lib Sci Doc

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LIBRARY NETWORKS IN INDIA

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Vol 38 No 2 June 1991

Fig. 3 : CALIBNETConnectivity Phase 2

43

VISWANA"D-lAN, MITrAL & LAKSHMI

International Gateway of Videsh Sanchar NigamLtd (VSNL) , a Govt. of India enterprise, Bombaythrough Indian Public Switched Data Networks(pSDN).

DELNET ( Delhi Libraries Network)

The main objectives of DELNET are optimumutilisation of funds through sharing of resources,creation of commonly usable databases andcommunication between libraries with the help ofautomation and networking.

A packet switching network hasbeen proposed foronline communication requirements. The librarysystemsare proposed to be connected to the packetswitch with respective X.25 network interface unitsand to use the correspondingsoftware.

The following transactions are envisaged amonglibraries within the network:

Remote login;Batchmode:Interlibrary loan service;File transfers; etc.

It hasbeen proposed initially to usethe dialup modefor the required information exchange among thesystems in phase I (Fig.4 ).

The main features of the network arc as follows:

A dial up modem is proposed for every librarywith an asynchronous port connected to it forinformation exchange.

Users of the system would be provided withfile transfer, electronic mail and bullet in boardservices in the batch mode.

Requests for interlibrary loan and otherofficial communications will be supported onE-mail.

The union catalogue and other related databaseswillreside on a central computer system which wouldbe capable of providing multiple data paths to all thesystems connected to it.

The network topology hasbeen designedon the basis

of the physical locations of the libraries and the flowrequirements of the data (Fig.5).

At present 35 libraries are expected to participatein DELNET.Allthe participating libraries are ex-pected to create the databases of monographs andserials using CDS/ISIS and CCF. A database ofunion catalogue of serials available in the partici-pating libraries has been created at JNU. A centralhub has beenestablishedat NISSAT. At present thelibraries can make use of E-mail facility through dialup modems.

SIRNET (SCientific and Industrial Research Net-work)

SIRNET is proposed to interconnect all the CSIRlaboratories and other R&D institutions of India.Themain Objectiveof SIRNET is to harnessthe vast S&Tinformation resourcesavailable with national labo-ratories and inculcate the habit of resource sharingamong them. The ultimateaim oftheSIRNETis tolink the entire scientific community of the nationwith the national library system and theinternational links to achieve efficient scientificcommunication. SIRNET is proposed to have a fourlayer architect ure.

The first layer is a backbone node network with acrosstopology spanning the length and breadth of thecountry and carrying high speed traffic from differ-ent paris of the country.

Second layer constitutes the city nodes.The city nodewill act asa clearing house [or the traffic originating!terminating in the city in which it located.The citynodes arc located in the cities with more than onelaboratory and no backbone node.

At the third layer the individual CSIR laboratoriesarc laboratory nodes which may directly be con-nected either to the city or to the backbone nodes.

The tourt h layer consists of the local end userswhomay also be connected either to the city or to thebackbone nodes. The system is based on UUCPprotocols for communication using dial-up tele-phone lines (PSTN--Public Switched TelephoneNetwork). All the nodes of SJRNET are UNIXmachines except user nodes (Fig.6 ). SIRNETarchitecture specifics the use of PSTN dial-up

Ann Lib Sci Doc

LIBRARY NETWORKS IN INDIA

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Vol 38 No 2 June 1991 4S

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46 Annlib Sci Doc

LIBRARY NEIWORKS IN INDIA

SIRNET LAYERED DESIGN

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Vol 38 No 2 June 1991

VISW ANA TIlAN, MITI AL & LAKSHMI

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48 Ann Lib Sci Doc

LlI3RARY NETWORKS IN INDlA

technology or PDN packet switched or thededicated lines technology.

The following services are proposed to be availableonSIRNET:

Electronic mail,FileTransfer,Document Transfer,Search and other InformationServices etc.

Electronic Mail

SIRNET is being implemented in a phased manner.In the first phase Electronic Mail has been imple-mented bringing high pitch response from all CSIRlaboratories. The other R&D institutions of thecountry are also coming up on the network (Fig.7 ).

File Transfer

The transfer of files from one machine to anotheris an integral part ofa computer network. The filemay be an ASCII file, a binary file, or a text file.Presently, only ASCII files can be transferred byUUCP protocol and the SIRNET protocol willenable both the ASCII and the binary files to betransferred in due course.

Document Transfer

Computer communication technology would beutilised for document transfer. The facsimile trans-mission, used presently, is not recommended onnetwork because of the heavy expenditure involvedin it.

Access to Indegenous Databases

To support R&D activities of the nation, INSDOC isdesigning and developing databases in variousdisciplines of science. Following databases are atpresent available online through c\irect dial-upmode:

Nauonal Union Catalogue of Scient ificSerials in IndiaCurrent Contents of Indian Journals(ISCOMM)n_' ._("'\_! ~_. __L .. __

c UJyUlvl 0\..lvll\..v LJ'Cllalla~\,;

Vol 38 No 2June 1991

Material Science Bibliographi: DatabaseCatalogue of Scientific & Technical Con-ference Proceedings

INTER NETWORKING

INSDOC, Delhi node of SIRNET (csird) acts as agateway to a larger network ERNET (Educationand Research Network) set up by the Department ofElectronics with the financial assistance fromUNDP and providies an E-mailfacility to 20 non-CSIR institutions. ERNETin turn is connected tothe international network UUNET through whichother international networks like BITNET, EARNand JANET can be accessed. So much so that it ispossible to access over 6000 databases all over theworld through a gateway Packet Switching System(GPSS) of the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL).Direct access to these databases is available fromBombay, Delhi, Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad,Pune, etc. INSDOC has established access to over1800 international databases on 15 different hoststhrough VSNL - GPSS facility.

I-NET, the network or the Department of Telecom-munications or the Government of India, offersfacilities for interlinking terminals and computersthrough packet switches located in important cities ofthe cou ntry.SIRNET wiIIeventually operate throughl-Nct, which is the main national data network. 1-Net also provides access to international datanetworks through GPSS of VSNL, at Bombay(Fig.8 ).

SAARC INFORMATION NETWORK (SARlNEl)-A PROPOSAL

India has gained sufficient expertise in the fieldof networking. Since mid-80's there has beenconsiderable amount of efforts and achievementsin computer networks in the country, The telecom-munication infrastructure has advanced to a levelwhere it is capable of supporting networking activi-ties, both nationally and internationally. Currently,there are over a dozen networks either operationalor under implementation in the country includeingRAILNE'i', COALNET,OlLNET, BANKNET,SAILNETetc. and the Information networks likeINFLIBNET, CALIBNET, DELNET, SIRNETetc. Thus India is in a position to establish, operateand manage ail iilf0rmaiion network to link the

49

VISWANAIHAN. MITrAL & U\KSHMI

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informatlon resources available in the SAARCcountries.

A proposed configuration for SAARC InformationNetwork is shown in Fig 9. National Focal Points(NFPs) will be connected using the InternationalPublic Switched Telephone or Data Network facili-Mes.Gateway Packet Switching System (GPSS) ofVSNL could be used as a reliable,cost-effectiveandflexible means of transborder data transfer. Initiallyelectronic mail facility can be introduced. As andwhen the National Focal Points (NFPs) develop theappropriate infrastructurel, other services may beintroduced. It is imperative that each National FocalPoint in the SAARC System should have thetelecommunication facilities ofa common agreedstandard to facilitate interaction directly with eachother for exchange of information.

INSDOC has compiled a database of the NationalUnion Catalogue of Scientific Serials in Indiarecording 35,000 serial titles held in over 800libraries in India Many of the SAARC countries mayhave similar Union Catalogues. All these could beupdated and merged into a single me and shared overthe network. Another area inwhich SAARCcoun-tries could cooperate is the creation of commonlyusable databases which could be specific mission ordiscipline oriented. The databases created bySAARC will not only satisfythe requirements of the

52

SAARC region but can also be commercially ex-ploited by information seekers from other parts ofthe world.

Since computers are now being extensively used ina\l the developing countries to automate the libraryservices and functions it is suggested that themode of retrospective conversion of bibliographicrecords may also be worked out to make the entiredata available on network.

REFERENCES

1. Development of information and library net-work - Report of the Inter Agency WorkingGroup. University Grants Commission, NewDelhi, Dec 1988.

2. Report on the feasibilitystudy on automationand networking of science and technologylibraries at Calcutta. NISSAT, New Delhi.

3. Report on the feasibilitystudy on automationand networking of Delhi libraries (DELNET).NISSAT, New Delhi.

4. Gupta D N: Scientific and Industrial ResearchNetwork (SIRNET) - need, architecture, tech-nology and services. In: Users training pro-gramme on online information retrieval,INSDOC, New Delhi, 1991,p 172-87.

Ann ubSci Doc