Servants of Knowledge presents digital libraries to science, educational institutions in Bengaluru
SoK representatives presented the archives to Arvind Narrain, secretary RBANM Trust, and scientists at the Science Gallery, Bengaluru, at two different events earlier this week. These facilities are in a ready-to-use mode, and will be maintained and updated by the SoK.
SoK founder Carl Malamud, co-founders Omshivaprakash H.L., Sushant Sinha, and Lawrence Liang of Dr. Ambedkar university, New Delhi, and others were present at the events.
'The library curated for the Science Gallery has science books in English, Kannada, Tamil and other languages, collected from various sources. It has additional material in different languages for educational and research,' said Mr. Omshivaprakash. It has digitised copies of around 20,000 books. All of them are searchable in Optical Character Recognition format.
The library created for RBANM has the over 12,000 books that were digitised from the libraries of various educational institutions run by the RBANM Trust and other materials. This includes materials for pedagogy, online and offline teaching and practical training. It has children's books, text books and other books and educational material that can be used by school, pre-university and degree college students, he informed.
'All such efforts are aimed not only at helping these institutions aid better educational delivery, but also to engage them in protecting and preserving knowledge and archiving it, and making it easily accessible to the general public,' said Mr. Malamud.
Mr. Narrain said the Trust would encourage its students to utilise the facilities not only for their regular studies and projects, but also to take up research in multi-disciplinary studies, and other areas. He said the Trust library will be utilised to provide access to books and magazines to students, researchers and the general public in phases.
SoK has put up over seven lakh pages of Indian gazettes and over six lakh books in Indian languages and English online. Their facility in the Gandhi Bhavan in Bengaluru has the capacity to digitise over 15 lakh pages every month.
'We are making progress. However, it is not easy, due to technical issues and fund raising delays,' said Mr. Malamud. 'Our motto is to provide free and universal access to knowledge, in all languages. We are working towards facilitating free, open access to knowledge, through online and offline resources,' he said.
SoK has digitised over 33,000 books of the National Law School India University, and the complete library of Indian Academy of Sciences. Work on digitisation of libraries in Azim Premji University, Hampi Kannada University, Karnataka Sanskrit University, and other institutions is nearly complete.
'The books were digitised and made searchable through Optical Character Recognition technology. The digitisation project in the Gandhi Bhavan is complete with over 11,000 books in multiple languages archived. The group has completed digitisation of over 70,000 science books in the Lalbagh library, and other places. Books on Indian languages, art forms, and children's literature and Assam Theatre archives, have been digitised in the last few months,' he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
an hour ago
- Economic Times
India needs concentrated tooling hubs for advanced manufacturing for aerospace and space domain: S Somanath
Synopsis S Somanath called for the establishment of dedicated manufacturing hubs across India, stressing the critical absence of a comprehensive aerospace manufacturing framework. He underscored the pressing demand for skilled technicians in tooling and related sectors, while also highlighting the supply chain challenges that impede India's rocket production capabilities. ANI S Somanath Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S Somanath on Tuesday said there is an urgent need to develop tooling hubs in India to truly scale advanced manufacturing. He emphasised that India must create focused, concerted manufacturing ecosystems similar to those in China. Speaking at the Accel Advanced Manufacturing Summit in Bengaluru, Somanath said India lacks an ecosystem for aerospace manufacturing. 'Distributed hubs across the country are not a good idea for sectors like aerospace. We need concentrated hubs where all players are aggregated, coupled with institutions that add value to research and innovation,' he said. He highlighted that specialised skills such as tooling are often not addressed in the domain. 'We need people with great knowledge in tooling processes, metallurgy, materials manufacturing, machine tools, process engineering, and automation,' he said, while discussing India's next decade building frontier tech also pointed out that while Indian rockets are witnessing strong global demand, the lack of sufficient supply remains a bottleneck that needs immediate attention. 'Manufacturing becomes the crux of the problem. The ability to manufacture and launch in a short period is essential,' he told startups looking to build in the space sector, highlighting that mass manufacturing in satellites and small launch vehicles will be needed to capture the global startups and deeptech investors also echoed his thoughts and said that for India, space as a defence technology has come much later, and there are areas where it still needs to play catch-up. Agnikul Cosmos CEO Srinath Ravichandran said the way to address the gap is not to mimic the SpaceX model but to build from scratch. 'Everyone wants to go build a SpaceX, but that may not be the easiest way to build rockets,' he said, adding that instead of replicating the model, solutions can be built from the Indian context for the Rajaram, managing partner at deeptech venture capital firm Speciale Invest, which has backed several spacetech startups, believes, 'There are certain places we (India) can leapfrog, like in-orbit servicing or any action that you can do in orbit. That's very much a level playing field. Maybe the West is just two or three years ahead of us, and India can compete there.'
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
India needs concentrated tooling hubs for advanced manufacturing for aerospace and space domain: S Somanath
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Former Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO ) chairman S Somanath on Tuesday said there is an urgent need to develop tooling hubs in India to truly scale advanced manufacturing. He emphasised that India must create focused, concerted manufacturing ecosystems similar to those in at the Accel Advanced Manufacturing Summit in Bengaluru, Somanath said India lacks an ecosystem for aerospace manufacturing. 'Distributed hubs across the country are not a good idea for sectors like aerospace. We need concentrated hubs where all players are aggregated, coupled with institutions that add value to research and innovation,' he highlighted that specialised skills such as tooling are often not addressed in the domain. 'We need people with great knowledge in tooling processes, metallurgy, materials manufacturing, machine tools, process engineering, and automation,' he said, while discussing India's next decade building frontier tech also pointed out that while Indian rockets are witnessing strong global demand, the lack of sufficient supply remains a bottleneck that needs immediate attention. 'Manufacturing becomes the crux of the problem. The ability to manufacture and launch in a short period is essential,' he told startups looking to build in the space sector, highlighting that mass manufacturing in satellites and small launch vehicles will be needed to capture the global startups and deeptech investors also echoed his thoughts and said that for India, space as a defence technology has come much later, and there are areas where it still needs to play Cosmos CEO Srinath Ravichandran said the way to address the gap is not to mimic the SpaceX model but to build from scratch. 'Everyone wants to go build a SpaceX, but that may not be the easiest way to build rockets,' he said, adding that instead of replicating the model, solutions can be built from the Indian context for the Rajaram, managing partner at deeptech venture capital firm Speciale Invest, which has backed several spacetech startups, believes, 'There are certain places we (India) can leapfrog, like in-orbit servicing or any action that you can do in orbit. That's very much a level playing field. Maybe the West is just two or three years ahead of us, and India can compete there.'
The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Young scientists told to ‘co-create' with farmers at IISER Tirupati
Samir Somaiya, chairman and managing director of Godavari Biorefineries Limited and Chancellor of Somaiya Vidyavihar University called for the urgent transition of India from an 'oil-based' economy to a 'soil-based' one. An expert in biorefining, Mr. Somaiya's observation came as a clarion call towards conserving the environment. Delivering the chief guest's address at the sixth convocation of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tirupati, on Tuesday, he encouraged the young scientists to 'co-create' with farmers, hinting at the need to adopt an approach that integrated modern agricultural practices with traditional wisdom. Mr. Somaiya spoke on the importance of knowing one's heritage and its connection to scientific pursuits. Jhillu Singh Yadav, Chairperson, Board of Governors, IISER, called upon the graduates to transform into catalysts for change, urging them to tackle pressing issues in agriculture, sustainable chemistry and the manufacturing of semi-conductors and enzymes. His emphasis was on identifying manufacturing processes that do not pollute the environment, stating that such innovations would help in the nation's advancement. Referring to 'Viksit Bharat', he called upon the graduates to become 'good scientists' and use their knowledge for the country's development. IISER Director Santanu Bhattacharya gave away 22 PhDs, eight Integrated PhDs, three MS degrees, 141 flagship BSMS dual degrees, 69 professional Master's degrees, six BS degrees and six degrees. The convocation concluded with a unique trilingual vote of thanks delivered by the Registrar Inderpreet Singh Kohli in Hindi, Telugu and English.
