Digital Initiatives of the Indian Council of World Affairs' Library

Abstract

This chapter attempts to unravel the journey of Sapru House library (Indian Council of World Library) from a passive manual traditional library to an active electronic library. This chapter provides insights into the traditional management of the resources and their service provision and examines the reasons for the digital initiatives and the how the challenges and obstructions were met and overridden. ICWA library is an academic library having a unique and matchless collection of bound newspapers (since1933), press clippings (since 1964) and rare books (between 1700-1900) constitute 70% of its total collection. Housing, storage, management, preservation, conservation, retrieval and dissemination were underlying reasons that inspired the author to transform this valued collection to a digital repository of knowledge. This chapter gives a detailed account of the conception of the digital initiations vis-à-vis the digital project, outlines, reports, discussions, presentations, approvals, sanctions, funding, execution, implementation and the outcome and realization of the dream.