National Workshop on Building Open Access PhD Theses Digital Libraries Using Nitya D’Arch - November 2-3, 2010

Open Access Online PhD Theses is highly connected to the purpose of universities and the value of scholarship. It advances the university's interest and fulfills its mission to share the knowledge it produces. In India the first university to take initiative in this regard is Mahatma Gandhi University. The launching of the Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) Open Access Digital Archive of PhD Theses (www.mgutheses.org) in 2008 by Former President of India H E Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam and the live presence of the archive in the web for the last two years is a success story among Indian universities. It is accessible from anywhere at any time through the URL http://www.mgutheses.org since its launching in 2008.

With all the encouragement and instruments provided by UGC during the the last decadeIt MGU Archive is still the only successful full text Open Access archives of dissertations hosted in the web by any Indian University. The archive has been selected as one of the Very Best Web Resources for Education and Research by INTUTE, the European Consortium of universities funded by Government of UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). MGU has also become the first signatory among Indian universities to adopt UGC’s Regulation on E-Theses and contribute data to the UGC’s national Open Access archive of theses at INFLIBNET.

The present Workshop is intended to encourage other universities and research institutes in India to bring results of academic research to public domain and also familiarize Nitya D Arch and the multilingual technologies for full text archiving used in developing the MGU Digital Archives of PhD theses that can be easily adopted by any university or research institute for any Indian language. Nitya D’ Arch facilitates multilingual data input, advanced Boolean query building, and deep indexing which facilitates retrieval of specific pages/sections. The workshop will discuss various problems hidden in the process of digitization of dissertations and introduce tetsed techniques and solutions. It will be an  opportunity for implementers and developers from Indian universities to gain both technical and theoretical insight in Theses Digitaization, technologies for Indian languages, and providing Open Acces to results of public funded research.

No registration fee will be charged for the participants who are selected to undergo the programme in the first batch. But selection will be based on merit of the participants benefits of  this capability building for the sponsoring institute. Cost of boarding, lodging, travel and other expenses are to be born by the sponsoring institution.

For Registration, Contact: Dr. R. Raman Nair, Mahatma Gandhi University Library

Priyadarsini Hills, Kottayam- 686560. Telephone: 0481 273080, 273018, 9387826738

For related programs and announcements, please visit the blog: http://mgutheses.wordpress.org and also the news section of the MGU theses Archive at mgutheses.org from where the Workshop brochure and Registration Form can be downloaded.

Download Registration Form and brochure

Dr. R. Raman Nair bagged Chattambi Swami Award

Mahatma Gandhi University  Librarian Dr. R. Raman Nair has bagged the Chattambi Swami Award instituted by the Attukal Devi Temple Trust. The award is for his initiative to preserve and disseminate the digital archives on the saint.

The award carries a cash prize of Rs. 30,000 and a citation. Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran will distribute the award on Tuesday at a function to be held as part of the birth anniversary of the Swami at the Chattambi Swami Smarakam, Thiruvananthapuram.

The Chattambi Swami Archive Project was designed for conserving published and unpublished works, letters, diaries, notes, memoirs, photographs and other data related to Swami and his associates.

It will be made open world wide through the Internet. Raman Nair along with his wife, had authored the first research based on Chattambi Swami recently.

News Courtesy: The New Indian Express, 31 August 2010

News Courtesy: Deshabhimani, 31 August 2010

Inauguration of ICT Lab & Workshop on Effective Use of World Wide Web

Dr. Rajan Gurukkal , Hon. Vice Chancellor of MG University inaugurated the Workshop on Effective Use of World Wide Web For Research stating that libraries have to play a very crucial role in ensuring quality of higher education and research. He also stated that the purpose of libraries is to preserve the integrity of civilization, and that it has a moral obligation to adhere to its purpose despite other influences. The Library is infinite in its capacity to contain, connect and disseminate knowledge. Librarians should connect people with accurate information, select, organize and facilitate creation of content and anticipate, identify and meet the needs of the user community. He pointed out the example of Jawaharlal Nehru University and said that an university library should become the live centre of the campus where people meet and discuss and the place should be inviting and open from 8 AM to 11 PM at least and if possible 24 hours, 365 days so that a student or teacher who want to use the knowledge collection of the university at any time of the day during his work gets access to its. The ICT lab of the library was also opened by the Vice Chancellor.

Dr. Sabu Thomas, Professor of Chemistry and the Syndicate member of MGU giving presidential address opined that libraries are not getting their due recognition in the academic systems of India. He also emphasized the need for effective implementation of ICT based technologies in the libraries to extend services to the expected users’ table and also stressed the need to train librarians and library users for the networked environment. He also stressed the need to relate to teaching learning programmes to the library so that students will explore knowledge by themselves and experience the pleasures of Knowledge discovery.

The workshop was led by Shri. K Rajashekaran from KILA, Thrissur who was one of the best trainers in ICT available in India. .He demonstrated the immense possibilities offered by WWW and the techniques and the methods to extract maximum benefit from web based systems. The need for individuals to develop their own “art of online searching” was stressed by him in the programme. Sri. Bijulal, M V from the faculty of School of International Relations presented an evaluation of the workshop commenting that such training can increase the positive use of web for education and research and influence the quality of work. Sri. G. Sreekumar, Public Relations Officer, Dr. R. Raman Nair, and Smt. Laila T Babu from MG University Library, and (Student) spoke on the occasion.

 Prof. (Dr.) Rajan Gurukkal, Vice Chancellor inaugurating the ICT Lab

Welcome speech by Dr. R Raman Nair, Librarian, MG University Library

 Presidential address by Dr.Sabu Thomas, Member,Syndicate MGU

 Inaugural Speech by Prof. (Dr.) Rajan Gurukkal, Vice Chancellor, MGU

Technical note by Sri.R Rajasekharan, KILA,Trissur,

 Vote of Thanks by Ms.Laila T. Abraham, Deputy Librarian, MGU

 Audience

 Sri.R Rajasekharan, KILA,Trissur, leading the workshop

International Youthday Celebration

Mahatma Gandhi University Library celebrated World Youth Day on 12th August 2010. Conducted books exhibition and slide show on the same theme.


You can see the power point presentation here,

International Youthday Celebration

View more presentations from Mahatma Gandhi University Library.

Following videos were displayed in the occasion under following topics.


Poverty in India






Environmental sustainability





HIV/AIDS