National Digital Library of India

Not to be confused with Digital Library of India.

National Digital Library of India (NDLI)

Type of site	Education
Available in	12 Search Languages languages
Headquarters	IIT Kharagpur, WB, India, Kharagpur , India
Country of origin	India
Key people	Dr. B. Sutradhar, Jt. PI of NDLI, Librarian of Central Library, IIT Kharagpur
Employees	>92 (January 2023)
URL	www.ndl.gov.in
Commercial	No
Registration	Free
Users	87,09,389+ (July 2024)
Launched	19 June 2018
Current status	Active
Content license	CC0

The National Digital Library of India is a virtual repository of learning resources, providing services including textbooks, articles, videos, audiobooks, lectures, simulations, fiction, and other kinds of learning media for the learners/user community. It is a project managed by the Ministry of Education, Government of India through its National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT). The objective of the project is to collect and collate metadata and provide full text index from several national and international digital libraries, as well as other relevant sources. The NDLI provides free of cost access to many books and designed to hold content of any languages and provides search support for the 12 most widely used Indian languages. It is developed, operated, and maintained by the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

NDLI offers access to educational materials across various disciplines and academic levels. It aggregates content from numerous national and international sources, including books, articles, theses, audio-video lectures, and OERs. The platform supports multiple languages, and ensures resources are available to those who wish to access them. Built using open architecture, open-source software & open metadata, NDLI currently provides access to more than 100 million items, in 39 Indian languages, out of 423 languages in total.

History and timeline

Genesis

The development of a digital library portal was initiated as a Pilot project (NDLI Ph-I) in April 2015. NDLI Ph-I lasted till 30 September 2017. The initial duration of Ph-II was from 1 October 2017 to 31 March 2020 but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this phase was extended till 31 March 2021. Ministry of Education, Govt. of India initiated the Ph-III of the project, and its duration is from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2026.

With the primary aim to integrate significant Indian digital and non-digital libraries through a single-window platform, ensuring accessibility to educational resources for every demographic the library was dedicated to the nation on 19 June 2018, by the Union Human Resource Minister Prakash Javadekar.

2014-2017: Establishment and Growth

The digital library portal's development began as a pilot project (NDLI Ph-I) in April 2015. By 2016, the beta version of the portal went live. This period is marked for aggregating content and establishing partnerships with numerous institutions across India, including central libraries of various universities, public libraries, and other educational institutions. The portal quickly expanded its repository and incorporated tools to facilitate access and usability, including multilingual support.

2017-2020: Phase Two and Official Launch

The official launch of the NDLI platform occurred on 19 June 2018, aiming to democratize access to knowledge for over 50 million students across India. By 2019, NDLI had aggregated over 30 million items in more than 70 languages, covering subjects such as literature, science, mathematics, engineering, and medicine. This period is marked for expanding its reach and integrating advanced technological features to enhance user experience. A new and more user-friendly UI was launched to make it accessible on various devices, promoting wider use in both urban and rural areas. By that time NDLI also enhanced its capabilities in handling and preserving Indigenous content, including rare manuscripts and folk literature, thus contributing to the preservation of cultural heritage.

NDLI's Response to the COVID-19 Lockdown

As hundreds of schools, colleges, and universities across India went into complete lockdown on 25 March 2020, NDLI had to adapt quickly, evolving from a ‘data-focused’ approach to one centred on ‘agility and service.’ This required significant efforts in classifying content into user-targeted services, resulting in the first major overhaul of the site since its inception.

2021- 2026: Phase Three

Phase Two of the NDLI project was approved for the period from 2017 to 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project timeline was extended. In 2021, the Ministry of Education, Government of India, extended the NDLI project until 2026. As normal activities gradually resumed after the pandemic, a major overhaul of NDLI was implemented to further enhance its capabilities and reach.

Launch of NDLI 3.0: A New Era of Digital Learning

On 22 April 2024, the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) launched its 3.0 version. NDLI 3.0 is designed to create a more personalized user experience through an enhanced interface.

Focus on Education

NDLI currently houses content from 23 state boards and national boards such as CBSE and NCERT. The range of content includes school, college, and university-level topics, as well as material for 21st-century skills such as digital literacy, language and communication, and scientific temper. These resources are available in text, video, audiobook, presentations, and simulations in multiple Indian languages, aligning NDLI’s objectives with the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Services

NDLI Club

Like other digital libraries worldwide, NDLI faces the challenge of disseminating, popularizing, and increasing user awareness of its platform. To address this, several initiatives have been undertaken with the assistance of the Government of India. The NDLI club is one of these initiatives.

In 2020, the Indian government launched the National Education Policy (NEP 2020), and NDLI seized that opportunity to promote the platform and help educational institutions adopt key recommendations outlined in NEP 2020. One such recommendation is the establishment of topic-centred and project-based clubs designed to nurture students' interests and talents through supplementary enrichment material, guidance, and support.

NDLI launched the NDLI Club in March 2021. This digital initiative provides a platform for institutions to establish activity-based clubs where students can engage in various learning activities using content from the NDLI repository. The NDLI Club platform enables institutions to create events, upload reports, maintain event logs, automatically generate certificates, and build networks in order to exchange resources.

As of July 2024, over 5,800 institutions have established clubs using the NDLI Club platform, bringing together nearly 1.7 million members from different regions of India. The primary objective of the NDLI Club is to promote NDLI awareness among students and teachers through activity-based learning, offering NDLI as a valuable resource and service.

Institutional Digital Repository (IDR)

The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) provides Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) services to academic institutions across India. To date, NDLI has facilitated the establishment of more than 150 IDRs, significantly enhancing the digital infrastructure of these institutions.

Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)

NDLI set up its own Digital Preservation Centre at Salt Lake in 2019. Initially, the contents of "Presidency Alumni Association" were digitized there and integrated into NDLI. This features some contents such as:

• The Presidency College Register consists of a list of graduates from 1858-1925.
• Oaten on Netaji - Poem by the Professor of History on Subhas Chandra Bose.
• Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, one of the first Graduates of Presidency College, marked absent in the attendance record of the class of 1858-59.
• Volumes of the journal by the alumni, "Autumn Annual", edited by Late Nabanita Deb Sen.
• Issues of the Bengali science journal "Jnan O Bijnan" that were published from 1948-2020.
• A Bengali translation of "Srimadbhagabad gita", contributed by Udbodhan Karyalaya.

Access and restrictions

User registration is open to users from around the world. However, contents from some popular sources are only accessible to registered users. Some of these registration-only works are from sources such as:

• World eBook Library
• OECD iLibrary
• Satyajit Ray Society

Management

The library is managed by Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

See also

• Digital Library of India
• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library
• Panjab Digital Library
• Open access in India