The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Digital knowledge centre inaugurated

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 17, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Digital knowledge centre inaugurated

Staff Reporter

Anna University to give importance to infrastructure development

FASTER ACCESS: Anna University Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan inaugurates the digital knowledge centre in the university library on Tuesday. At extreme right is Prof. Vijayaraghavan, former principal of Guindy Engineering College. — Photo: N. Sridharan

CHENNAI : A digital knowledge centre, set up at a cost of Rs. 70 lakh, was inaugurated at the central library of Anna University on Tuesday.

The digital centre will help students, scholars and faculty access the Internet and several online journals and periodicals subscribed by the university. Users can also access digital libraries. Digitisation of hard copies of selected books and journals in the main library are planned for the future.

The alumni members from the batch of 1979 contributed Rs. 25 lakh towards the infrastructural needs of the project. Alumni members also undertook the installation of the systems. Anna University funded the purchase of computer systems at a cost of Rs. 45 lakh.

The digital centre's browsing secton has provision of 46 users while the content development room has the server, scanners and digitisers. Research done by the university would be uploaded through the server and posted on the Internet.

Inaugurating the centre, Anna University Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan said that the gesture from the 1979 batch was a fine example of the support that alumni could give their alma mater. In foreign universities, alumni contributed to meet as much as 50 per cent of the institution's financial needs. This trend of alumni contribution should be encouraged in India too, he recommended.

The Vice-Chancellor said that the university would give importance to infrastructure development in 2006-07. The Government has approved Rs. 100 crore for the development, he said.

Students of the '79 batch honoured the then principal Professor Vijayaraghavan.

They reminisced about their days in the university. For the last five years, the batch has met on every August 15. They raised funds over a period of six years, with the principle that the money would come only from their own savings and not through any corporate sponsorship.

R. Ramprabhu, Dean of College of Engineering, was also present.

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