National Electronic Library Will Be Accessible by Anyone: Irani

Every citizen of the country will have access to the contents of the National Electronic Library (NEL), HRD minister said Wednesday.

"The government of India has taken a decision to provide access to NEL to its citizens including students and teachers in schools, colleges and universities. Most resources in NEL would be available in open access to every citizen of India without any restrictions," Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

NEL is a digitised library which according to the minister will be device independent.

"It can be accessed using a variety of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones and other devices," added Irani.

However, few of the resource contents will be especially subscribed to students, researchers and faculty of colleges.

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Further, the resources available under the National Repository of Open Education Resources (NROER), launched in 2013, will also be part of e-library.

"NROER is a collaborative platform that endeavours to bring together relevant and appropriate digital digitizable resources in multiple languages for the school system for all classes and subjects," she said.

The resources available in NROER are in the form of concept maps, video, multimedia, learning objects, audio clips, talking books, photographs, diagrams and charts, articles, Wiki pages and textbooks.