December
18: Delivering the presidential address at the
two-day National Workshop on "Web Content Management", the Vice
Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, Lt. General (Retd.) Zameer Uddin Shah
said that the University would facilitate access to the wealth of knowledge to
outside researchers.
Gen. Shah said that now a
days, research scholars are very lucky to have internet for searching the
resource material. He said that digitalization process of the University is
proceeding speedily.
Gen. Shah said that
although he belonged to a generation that enjoyed reading printed books, he was
aware that the future belonged to digitalized work and several institutions had
developed e-Libraries. He said that he was committed to digitalization of all
valuable books and their availability to users through the internet.
Prof. N. Laxman of Rajiv
Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Hyderabad said that the website is
a gateway to internet. He said that 300 million websites are available for
various purposes throughout the globe. Germany has the highest number of
internet users as 84.7 percent people there are using this technology. He said
that India has the largest number of electronic books. He pointed out that
AMU's Maulana Azad Library has the facility of accessing e-books and it is
considered the best library among Indian universities' libraries with a
facility of two million e-books.
Prof.
Laxman appreciated the Digital Resource Centre developed by Maulana Azad
Library which provides free access to the resource material to the users. He
said that the libraries were the centre of knowledge activity because of the
technological advancement. He however urged the research scholars to use
authentic material.
On this occasion, AMU
Vice Chancellor, general Shah released the "Directory of Major Scientific
Research Organizations and Institutes in India" compiled by Dr. Naushad
Ali PM.
The
purpose of this Directory is to provide a reference source to students,
researchers, scientists, academicians etc who are engaged in various research
assignments in various disciplines of science and technology.
The Directory covers
details of more than 300 institutes all over India specializing in various
disciplines of science and technology.
Noted
historian, Prof. Irfan Habib was the guest of honour of the inaugural ceremony.
He hoped that more and more history material will be available on the internet.
While welcoming the
dignitaries, Prof. Shabahat Husain, Chairman, Department of Library and
Information Science at AMU, said that the department was a pioneering
department in the country which started Certificate Course in Library Science
in 1951. It started B. Lib. Science in 1958-59 and M. Lib. in 1971-72.
Prof. Shabahat Husain
pointed out that the Information Technology Lab was established in 2003. He
said that the Subject Gateway is an organized collection of resources.
Dr.
Naushad Ali, PM proposed a vote of thanks and Dr. Mohd. Musthafa K. conducted
the inaugural ceremony
(Report by PRO, AMU)
