Designing an Information Retrieval and Delivery Interface for Digital Reading Rooms

摘要

Purpose: In the present age of Information and Communication Technology, the classrooms across the globe are nevertheless transforming into digital learning centers with the deployment of interactive boards, LCD projectors and laptops, thus offering never before learning experiences to the students. But is the chief support system for the learning process-the library-adequately equipped and geared up to uncover before the learners the world of reference resources and reinforce the teaching-learning process ? In a multi-linguistic country like India where English is only a second language, are libraries making effort to provide e-resources to the users in the language of their choice? Are the challenges of digital divide properly addressed? Finding answers to these questions is the purpose of this paper. Design: The paper describes a well designed library portal with a discovery engine that is deployed to address the technological in competences and linguistic issues of the rural students. Approach: The paper is based on the evaluative examination of e-portals and educational resources offered by government agencies such as CEC, NPTEL, INDEST, N-LIST, etc., and found that the resources are available only in English and that they require some degree of technical competence on the part of the user to access the resources. Value: This paper describes a model information retrieval and delivery interface for digital reading rooms for university and college libraries that could solve many of the challenges faced by the students in locating the reference material and translating to their native language.