NDLI's online wing brings 1.26 cr books, journals for free

Kolkata: The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) commissioned by the Ministry of Human Resource and developed by IIT Kharagpur is all set to democratize the face of education in India. This online digital treasure-trove has already been able to bring in as many as 1.26 crore books, journals, periodicals and research materials from nearly 100 leading institutions across the country and the world at one's fingertips.

The NDLI website was launched over a year back and has since gained over 20 lakh plus users from around the globe. IIT Kharagpur also released the mobile app in the month of April 2017 giving anyone who has a smartphone the opportunity to access the collection anytime and from anywhere in India.

NDLI is an open source platform which means that not only does it provide universal access to quality learning resources but also allows edupreneurs to build their own learning products/services using NDLI as a base platform. The website and apps contain resources from 145 premier sources from within the country (IITs, IIMs, NCERT etc.) as well as abroad (World e-Book Library, South Asia Archive, Librivox etc.) to ensure that not just students but learners of all ages and fields of study have access to relevant content in multiple languages and multiple formats.

The library has over 9,900 registered institutions with the total number of users currently being 2,195,986. The total number of downloads for the android app of NDL is 6768989.

"As a national knowledge asset, IIT-KGP's role has always been to enable the children of India to become citizens of tomorrow. This platform, available as a website as well as Android and iOs mobile app will help ensure that not just some, but all of India can learn, share and grow," said Partha Pratim Das, a senior faculty and coordinator for the NDLI project.

NDLI also has a very active Facebook and Twitter community which highlights special showcases and engages with users on a 24X7 format.

Learners can search for content using various parameters like subject matter, source, content type and more. Right now, the app is available in three languages — English, Hindi and Bengali.