BOOK INAUGURATION -“ Towards a digital India : Library Automation with Open source solution KOHA”

Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Hon’ble Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge) and Civil Aviation in inaugurated the book “ Towards a digital India : Library Automation with Open  source solution KOHA” written by Dr. Rishi Tiwari, Senior Librarian BIMTECH and Dr. D.P. Tripathi, Assistant Librarian, NIT Rourkela. The book will lend support to the initiative of “Digital India” started by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. The book is a milestone on how to manage the how to manage the various operations of library without any financial support using the open source library man.

The book is on Open Source Library Management Software-KOHA. The main aim of this book is to provide a concise account of library automation techniques with open source software KOHA to train the library professionals in the digital environment.

Many libraries are struggling with management of information and not able to automate their libraries due the less technical knowledge as well as huge cost involvement especially in library management software. Especially in developing countries, vendor lock-in has created another problem. The libraries that have chosen the library management system supported by commercial people can’t come out of the situation and they are totally dependent on the vendors support for any update or any error solution.

Keeping the above problems in view, this book has been written in such a way that a layman can also automate his/her own library without any support and also migrate their existing data to Koha library management software and enhance their library services effectively.

Dr. Mahesh Sharma observed in this and that the book will be very useful for the library professional in managing their libraries and also for the students who are looking forward to make their career in this profession.

Dr. Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director BIMTECH, Prof. N.N. Sharma, BIMTECH and Prof. Chari were also present on this occasion.