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Keywords
Developing countries, India, Libraries
Abstract
"India lives in villages" said the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. With 1,000 million people and 180 million households, India is one of the biggest growing economies in the world. With the advent of the Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) revolution, India and its villages are slowly but steadily getting connected to the cities of the nation and the world beyond. Owing to the late Rajiv Gandhi, India is now a powerful knowledge economy, and though India may have been slow to start, it certainly has caught up with the West and is ahead in important respects. The Government, the corporate sector, NGOs and educational institutions have supported rural development by encouraging digital libraries, e-business, e-learning and e-governance. The aim of this paper is to touch upon and highlight some of the areas where, by using ICT, the masses have been reached in this way. A follow-up paper will outline collections of significant cultural material which, once national IT strategies are fully achieved, could form part of a digitally preserved national heritage collection.
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Introduction
India has a rich cultural heritage, dating back many centuries. Having missed out on the industrial revolution, India is now slowly inching towards a super-power status in an era of knowledge revolution. Having been left behind by other countries, successive governments of post-independence India have pushed forward in the area of information, communication and technology (ICT).
With the world at one's fingertips via ever-growing numbers of satellite channels, the Internet and World Wide Web, there is a huge explosion of information. The concomitant exposure to the western world has led to a fear of cultural invasion. But if deployed appropriately, ICTs can effect economic, social and political empowerment. Success depends on the private sector, dynamic non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the free flow of information and, in particular, equal information access for women.
Realising the pivotal role that ICT plays in combating the rural and urban divide, be it in education, administration or economic development, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in a televised address to the nation...