The IFP Library WEB Catalogue

PRESENTATION AND DEMONSTRATION

In 2003, a single Centre for Documentary Resources was created at the French Institute of Pondicherry to replace the old departmental libraries. Its primary objectives were to ensure an integrated and modern management of the documentary collection and to facilitate its access by a large public.

With a collection of 59000 books and 260 current journals, the CDR today receives over 4500 visits a year from students, researchers and academics, both Indian and foreign.

An important step in the process of integration of the collections was the conversion and merging of the departmental catalogues into one single catalogue using a professional library software (LIBSYS). Already in use in several large Indian libraries, LIBSYS enabled the CDR to automate all its functions and to create a unique multi-script catalogue that could accommodate all the Indian and foreign language books available in the Institute’s collection. The Institute has books in various Indian (Sanskrit, Tamil etc.) and European (English, French etc.) languages.

The CDR now has an original catalogue, probably the first of its kind in India, where the records can be searched and viewed both in the original Indian scripts as well as in Roman transliteration. This catalogue, which could earlier be consulted only in the library reading room, is now accessible on the Internet. In other words, it can be consulted by anyone around the world using a standard browser such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla.

A short presentation of the CDR as well as a demonstration of the various features of its unique web catalogue was made on the 18th of December 2007 at 4 p.m. in the library reading room.

The event was presided over by Dr. Jean-Pierre Muller, Director, IFP. The Honorable Minister for Education of the Government of Puducherry, Mr. Shah Jahan, and the French Consul General in Pondicherry and Chennai, Mrs. Joëlle Rayet, were the Chief Guests.

Date

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Venue

Library reading room, IFP, Pondicherry

Time

4.00 pm