India’s National Digital Library will have a million free e-books

The National Digital Library will roll out a collection of 1 million digitsed books and journals, according to an official. The Library will also bring over 100 institutes under its fold.

National Digital Library is a collaborative effort between the US and India to digitise a million books ranging from technical literature to art. (CC/David Orban)

The National Digital Library will roll out a collection of a million digitised books and journals, according to an official. The Library will also bring over 100 institutes under its fold.

"The first thing that will come in February is the National Digital Library (NDL) with one million books and journals that will be used by students across the country," R. Subrahmanyam, additional secretary for technical education in the human resource development ministry told IANS during the launch of Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) scheme on Monday.

The NDL will ensure "uniform high standards" of e-content free of cost on a single platform.

The five-year-old National Digital Library is a collaborative effort between the US and India to digitise a million books ranging from technical literature to art. According to a Medianama report, the project has 13 nodal centers that are linked together through internet connections that are as slow as 512 kbps.

The NDL's website lists five institutes including the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi among others. You can search for books by author, title, subject or language can read them online -- if they download, that is.

(With inputs from IANS)