National Mission on Libraries

• 02 Jul 2019

The Union Ministry of Culture has declared financial assistance under National Mission on Libraries (NML) to develop libraries in each States/UT.

• As per scheme, it will provide financial assistance for upgradation of infrastructure of one State Central Library and one District Library in each State/UT as NML Model Library.
• Public libraries as being a State Subject, function under the administrative control of the respective State/UT library authority.
• There are six Public Libraries under administrative control of Union Ministry of Culture namely National Library, Kolkata; Central Reference Library, Kolkata; Central Secretariat Library, New Delhi; Delhi Public Library, Delhi; Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna and Rampur Raza Library, Rampur.

National Mission on Libraries (NML)

• The Union Ministry of Culture in 2012 formulated the NML scheme in pursuance of National Knowledge Commission recommendations for sustained attention for development of Libraries and Information Science Sector.
  
  • The National Knowledge Commission was constituted in 2005 to prepare a blueprint for reform of knowledge related institutions and infrastructure which would enable India to meet the challenges of the future.
• The scheme consists of four components:
  
  • Creation of National Virtual Library of India (NVLI)
  • Setting up of NML Model Libraries
  • Quantitative & Qualitative Survey of Libraries
  • Capacity Building
• The setting up on NML Model Libraries would develop 6 Libraries under Ministry of Culture, 35 State Central Libraries and 35 District Libraries with particular emphasis on economically backward districts, as model Libraries.
  
  • In addition, 629 district libraries across the states would be provided network connectivity.
• The Quantitative & Qualitative Survey of Libraries would be undertaken to prepare a baseline data of libraries in India through a survey of 5000 Libraries.
• The Capacity Building would be undertaken to enhance the professional competence of library personnel.

National Virtual Library of India (NVLI)

• The objective of the NVLI is to facilitate the creation of a comprehensive database on digital resources of India on information about India in an open access environment.
• Salient features of NVLI are:
  
  • Federated searching through multilingual user interfaces.
  • Virtual learning environment.
  • E-Governance platform facilitating data analytics
  • Multilingual searching and retrieval on ontology/thesaurus based.
• The project of creation of NVLI costing Rs.72.34 crore had been entrusted to IIT Bombay (in collaboration with C-DAC, Pune and IGNOU, Delhi).