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The New Zealand Digital Library project aims to develop the underlying technology for digital libraries and make it available for others to use to create their own collections. We have built a large number of demonstration collections. Because our policy is to avoid manual processing of material, full‐text indexing and — to a lesser degree — automatically created browsing structures provide the primary point of access to the material. As well as conventional textual collections, we are experimenting with collections of musical and audio material. This article describes the library structure and present and planned collections, and summarises our experiences in the project.

The Greenstone digital library software is an open‐source system for the construction and presentation of information collections. Collections built with Greenstone offer effective full‐text searching and metadata‐based browsing facilities that are attractive and easy to use. Moreover, they are easily maintainable and can be augmented and rebuilt entirely automatically. The system is extensible: software “plugins” accommodate different document and metadata types. Greenstone incorporates an interface that makes it easy for people to create their own library collections. Collections may be built and served locally from the user’s own Web server, or (given appropriate permissions) remotely on a shared digital library host. End users can easily build new collections styled after existing ones from material on the Web or from their local files (or both), and collections can be updated and new ones brought online at any time.

Digital libraries are a key technology for developing countries. They can assist human development by providing a non‐commercial mechanism for distributing humanitarian information on topics such as health, agriculture, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation and water supply. Many other areas, ranging from disaster relief to medical education, also benefit from new methods of information distribution. Perhaps even more important than disseminating information originating in the developed world is the need to foster the ability for people in developing countries to build information collections locally. Outlines a broad range of issues and then goes on to describe how a freely available digital library system called “Greenstone” provides a flexible tool that helps meet some of these needs. Being “open source” software, Greenstone can be shaped by its users to meet new requirements.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce Greenstone and explain how librarians use it to create and customize digital library collections.

Through an end‐user interface, users may add documents and metadata to collections, create new collections whose structure mirrors existing ones, and build collections and put them in place for users to view.

First‐time users can easily and quickly create their own digital library collections. More advanced users can design and customize new collection structures

The Greenstone digital library software is a comprehensive system for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a way of organizing information based on metadata and publishing it on the Internet or on removable media such as CD‐ROM/DVD.

The conference co‐ordinator and an invited speaker of the International Conference on Digital Libraries (ICDL) which took place in New Delhi, India, February 2004 provide an overview of the conference – one of a growing series of digital library conferences that bring together computer scientists and librarians. The objectives of this conference were to bridge the knowledge gaps between developing and developed countries; initiate capacity building activities in digital libraries; evolve a road map for the digitization of archives, manuscripts and libraries; provide a forum for facilitating interaction among participants; and formulate recommendations on digitization technologies and policies. Outlines the themes and topics covered and provides the main points of the inaugural address to the conference by the President of India as well as the three keynote addresses.

This paper aims to describe SpaceCat, a centralised and distributed online information system based on open source software (GSDL) and its use for the space science community in India.

The system is based on open source software (GSDL, Apache, PERL, and GRE). SpaceCat gathers collections of space science serials, indexes them and offers them to the space science community.

The findings of the study suggest that SpaceCat can serve as an ideal access tool for space science serials holdings information in India and will enhance space research activity by providing information accurately, exhaustively and expeditiously.

This is an experimental prototype study and only a few samples have been considered. This will be investigated further with a wider population, which will improve the SpaceCat System.

These results suggest that a system like SpaceCat could be applicable to space science libraries, which would help to serve the students and scientists working on space science research in quickly accessing information from other institutes.

The paper describes the application of open source software (GSDL) as a form of resource‐sharing tool and a single authoritative source of space science serials holdings information in India.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the need for a digital repository of SIP reports and how the Digital Repository of SIP reports was set up using the Greenstone open source software at the ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad. In management education, students have to undergo a Summer Internship Project (SIP) in organizations to enhance learning and experience current work practices. Information of these projects needs to be captured and maintained in a digital repository to enable knowledge sharing and learning.

The phases involved in the creation of the digital repository are described. Steps involved in the Collection development using the GLI tool, “Greenstone Librarian Interface” are also described.

Installation of the digital repository is simple, Gathering of documents into the repository, enriching them with metadata, setting up of appropriate search indexes has to be done for efficient retrieval of information. Some knowledge of computers and Greenstone software is essential.

Once the digital repository is created it needs to be maintained. Staff need to be trained for correct uploading of documents and submitting metadata into the repository. Students need to be aware that the SIP report document must be a single document and must be given metadata in order to improve discoverability.

Guidelines are provided to assist setting up of a digital repository using the Greenstone software. Retrieval of information and knowledge sharing regarding the summer projects, the organisations where projects were done, the type of projects, etc., are possible with the creation of the digital repository.

The digital repository provides ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad with a central facility for systematic archiving of summer internship project reports and an insight to the organizations which offer projects, the type of projects that they offer, the applicability of the projects students have done etc. The digital repository is of use to students, faculties and the organizations. Management institutions, especially in India, should be encouraged to develop digital repositories of summer internship projects and share knowledge.

This paper aims to describe a model to provide a mechanism for the development of a union catalogue for geoscience theses based on open source software (GSDL) and to show how libraries can use open source as a vehicle for promoting library services. It is used for the geoscience community and educational users in India.

The system is based on open source software (GSDL, Apache, PERL, JRE). GeoTheses can be used both in offline mode (i.e. self‐installable CD‐ROM) and online through the web.

The findings of this study suggest that GeoTheses can serve as an online distributed digital library for geoscience theses held in India and will enhance the geoscience research activity by providing nascent information pinpointedly, exhaustively and expeditiously.

This is a pilot study, with the only limitation being that very few samples have been considered. This will be investigated further with a wider population, which will improve the GeoTheses system.

These results suggest that a system like GeoTheses could be used by the geoscience research communities, which would help to serve students and scientists working in the field to access information from other geoscience institutes around the world quickly.

The paper describes the application of open source software, GSDL as a form of resource sharing, an electronic archive and a high quality, central database of records for geosciences theses in India.