Kozhikode: An international workshop on Digital Libraries will be held at IIM Kozhikode from August 20-24, 2012. The objective of the Workshop is to conduct a 5-day rigorous and advanced training programme, coupled with state-of-art lectures delivered by doyens in the field, on Digital Libraries. The software selected for the workshop will be ‘Greenstone’.

 The Greenstone Digital Library Software is a top of the line and internationally renowned software system for developing digital libraries, promoted by the New Zealand Digital Library project research group at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Greenstone is developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is an open-source software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The aim of the software is to empower users, particularly in universities, libraries, and other public service institutions, to build their own digital libraries. More details of the software and example digital libraries built using the software are available at http://www.greenstone.org/. Greenstone is one of the most preferred and popular software used by Indian libraries, research establishments and organizations and the software received the coveted Andrew Mellon Award for Global Technology Collaboration (2008). The Centre for Development of Digital Libraries (CDDL) at IIM Kozhikode has the distinction of coordinating the Greenstone Support for South Asia for the past six years, on behalf of UNESCO.

The workshop will be inaugurated by Prof. Debashis Chatterjee, Director of IIM Kozhikode on August 20, 2012. Around 25 participants admitted for the workshop include delegates from the Middle East, as well as from prestigious institutions all over India. The course material will focus around the Greenstone Digital Library Software.

The workshop will be offered by a team led by Dr. M.G. Sreekumar, UNESCO Coordinator, Greenstone Support for South Asia and the Head Librarian of IIMK. Participants will be instructed in how to design digital collections of different publications in a variety of file formats, including multimedia such as audio, video, and images. They will also undertake assignments to design a small prototype of a library information system containing diverse type of material.

Participants will be receiving the Greenstone Digital Library Software and all instructional material on a CD-ROM, as the take away from the workshop, so that they can start applying their learning right away, when they are returned to their homes with renewed enthusiasm for spreading the exciting new technology of digital libraries.

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