Regional Seminar on Open Source software for digital library held at East West University
A Regional Seminar on ‘Open Source Software for Building Digital Libraries in South Asian Countries’ held on 6 July 2013 at East West University collaborate with Digital Library Network in South Asia (DlnetSA). The event was funded by Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL). M. Nazrul Islam Khan, Secretary, ministry of ICT was the chief guest, Professor Ahmed Shafee, Vice Chancellor, East West University was the Special Guest and Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin, President, Board of Trustees, Founder Vice Chancellor, East West University and former governor, Bangladesh Bank was the program chair of the Seminar. Dr. John B. Rose, Honorary Research Associate, University of Waikato, New Zealand has presented the keynote Paper at the Seminar. The Question answer session was moderated Professor Dr. K. S. Raghavan Visiting Scientist, Centre for Knowledge Analytics & Ontological Engineering, PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India. More than 150 library professionals throughout the country attended at the seminar.
The Chief Guest told in his speech that Bangladesh Government always encourages all organizations of public and private sector to use open source software for number of reasons like reducing pressure on economy, making our young generation creative and for copy right issues. Bangladesh government is working hard to make the environment of digital Bangladesh which will foster digital movement throughout the country. Bangaldesh Government and Bangla Academy are jointly working to develop Bangla Optical Character Reader (OCR) on priority basis. He also said that we should work on translation technology between Bangla and other main languages.
Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin said that East West University is working hard continuously to develop a world class library for its community.
Dr. Rose spoke about opportunities and challenges in creating digital libraries in the region, and emphasized the role of open source software in this context.
Before this seminar coordination meeting of DlnetSA held at East West University in two and half day long. In this meeting Mr. Shafiq Rana from Pakistan and Ms. Dilara Begum from Bangladesh were elected as President and General Secretary respectively for the next two years of the above regional organization. Before this Mr. Shafiq Rana was the Vice President and Ms. Dilara was the country coordinator of this organization last two years. DlnetSA is working in South Asian countries to promote and support developing digital libraries.
