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The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and development of a digital library at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), India, using DSpace open source software. The study covers the structure, contents and usage of CUSAT digital library.

This paper examines the possibilities of applying open source in libraries. An evaluative approach is carried out to explore the features of the CUSAT digital library. The Google Analytics service is employed to measure the amount of use of digital library by users across the world.

CUSAT has successfully applied DSpace open source software for building a digital library. The digital library has had visits from 78 countries, with the major share from India. The distribution of documents in the digital library is uneven. Past exam question papers share the major part of the collection. The number of research papers, articles and rare documents is less.

The study is the first of its type that tries to understand digital library design and development using DSpace open source software in a university environment with a focus on the analysis of distribution of items and measuring the value by usage statistics employing the Google Analytics service. The digital library model can be useful for designing similar systems.

India occupies second position among the countries that have adopted DSpace open source software for institutional repositories (IRs)/digital libraries (DLs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for DSpace being preferred over other software. It inspects various instances of Indian web-based DSpace systems including the nature and growth of collection, the geographical distribution of DSpace systems and the types of institutions that adopt and maintain DSpace.

Data were collected from the official website of DSpace, Google search and from online discussion forums during July 2013 to January 2014. The 132 Indian DSpace links provided in the official DSpace website were examined. Further search was carried out on Google to identify Indian IRs and DLs that are not listed by the official website. A list of Indian DSpace websites prepared by the authors was sent to the online discussion forums for further updating. An online directory of Indian DSpace websites was created using WordPress which provided for the adding of comments. The study is limited to the web-based DSpace IRs and DLs in India.

The majority of the Indian IRs and DLs listed on the official website of DSpace are not visible on the internet. Many links lead to institution websites, commercial websites and personal pages of authors. Out of 132 DSpace links, only 55 are visible on the internet to search and use. Indian libraries prefer DSpace over EPrints, Fedora and Greenstone. Many institutions could not maintain continuity of their DSpace systems in the online environment. Institutions having more funding are maintaining web-based DSpace systems. The size, economic conditions, rate of literacy and number of universities in an Indian state do not influence the maintenance of digital systems. Academic institutions involving universities, technical institutions and colleges lead in the adoption and maintenance of web-based DSpace in India. Private universities and colleges have adopted DSpace for IR/DL. Public libraries constitute a minimum percentage of web-based DSpace instances. Indian courts and Parliament have adopted DSpace. Shodhganga, the Indian ETD project, is running on DSpace.

This is the first paper examining the adoption of DSpace by Indian libraries with a focus on online visibility and the strength of collection. It can be used to understand the pattern of technology adoption by Indian libraries over the years.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the level of awareness and usage of open source digital repository software (DRS). The paper also studies the factors, which influence the level of awareness and usage of different open source DRS by academic librarians in India.

The study administered an online questionnaire to academic librarians in India to know their level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. The questionnaire aimed to gather the awareness and usage of open source DSR. In total, 374 complete responses were collected from academic librarians in India and the collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Moreover, Fishers’ exact test was used to identify whether factors i.e. qualification and participation in workshop/seminar influence the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS.

The results of the study reveal that the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS, namely, DSpace (Mean = 2.92, SD = 0.906) and Greenstone digital library software (GSDL) (Mean = 2.18, SD = 0.699) are high amongst the academic librarians in India. In total, 33.4%, 11.5% of the participants are using DSpace and GSDL, respectively, on regular basis. Fishers’ exact test shows that factor(s) i.e. qualifications and participation in workshop/seminar affect the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. The results show that there exits strong relation between participation in workshop/seminar and awareness and usage of DSpace (Fishers’ exact test = 13.473, p < 0.05).

This paper is the new type of study exploring level of awareness and usage of open source DRS by academic librarians in India. It identifies the factors that affect the awareness and usage of open source DRS. It is the first study to analyze the statistical significance between Indian librarians’ participation in workshop/seminar and their level of awareness and usage of different open source DRS.

The purpose of this paper is to study the adoption and use of open source software (OSS) in the libraries of Institutions of National Importance (INIs) in India vis-à-vis their economic impact on adopting libraries. Besides, it aims to study the business model of OSS.

The paper analyses the adoption and use of OSS in the libraries of INIs, India, and their economic impact on the adopting libraries. An online survey was administrated to library professionals of INIs to know the adoption and use of OSS in their libraries and its acceptability. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-square are used in this study.

The findings of the study reveal that the libraries of INIs adopt and use OSS in integrated library system (ILS) (18.4 per cent), digital repository (95.2 per cent) and library website (65.5 per cent). Koha, DSpace, Drupal and Joomla! are the most favoured OSS among the libraries of INIs. The results reveal that favouring of OSS and having a policy on OSS by the libraries have a positive and significant relationship with their adoption and use of OSS in the libraries. The results of the study show that university libraries of India could save an estimated Rs 417m by adopting open source ILS such as Koha, Evergreen, NewGenLib and ABCD.

The paper will help decision makers to adopt and use open source ILS in their libraries.

This paper is the first of its kind that explores the economic impact of OSS on the adopting libraries and also explicitly discusses the business model of open source library software.