Introduction
India has a long history of libraries that were established during the ancient medieval and modern periods. It also has a diverse socio-economic and cultural environment with varying levels of literacy and an uneven spread of ICT infrastructure. It is estimated that about 50,000 libraries exist in India, comprising academic libraries, public libraries, special libraries and libraries attached to research and development institutions, government departments and ministries, industries, etc. The ICT revolution has brought about a radical change in some of the major libraries in India. This technological change is not witnessed uniformly in the wider cross-section of the libraries, as libraries are at varying levels of transformation. They have to use ICT effectively to help the users. The country has also witnessed the growth of library networks during the last 20 years. A number of city library networks were conceptualized through institutional and governmental initiatives but only a few were able to survive. The rest failed to make progress and were shut down.
The paper highlights the pioneering work being done by Developing Library Network (DELNET), a non-governmental, non-profit-making organization supported partly by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Government of India. It is a major resource-sharing library network in South Asia, connecting more than 1150 libraries in 30 States and Union Territories (UTs) in India and six other countries (see Tables 17.1–3 and Figure 17.1). DELNET serves its member libraries, which are located within and outside India, and offers inter-library loan/document delivery services (ILL/DDS), one of its most popular services.
Library networking in India
The genesis of library networking in India can be traced back to the late 1980s. The National Information System for Science and Technology (NISSAT), a body under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) of the Government of India, took the initiative of supporting the city-based library networks. This led to the establishment of city library networks such as Bombay Library Network (BONET), Calcutta Library Network (CALIBNET), DELNET (Delhi Library Network, which became Developing Library Network in 2000), Madras Library Network (MALIBNET) and Pune Library Network (PUNENET).