By TCN News,
New Delhi: The Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM) – an autonomous organization under Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, and the Society for Information Research and Studies (SIRs) jointly organized today a one-day national conference on ‘Managing Information Resources in Digital Environment’ at the CCRUM headquarters in New Delhi.
Inaugurating the conference, Prof. Syed Shakir Jamil, Director General, CCRUM stressed the need to digitize the manuscripts of Unani Medicine on priority basis. He said that the knowledge and information on Unani Medicine are preserved in the manuscripts of libraries in different parts of the country. It is the need of the hour to propagate those knowledge and information and make them accessible to the researchers and doctors at global level through the digitization of those manuscripts. He further said that the Council has already digitized some of the manuscripts available at the Council headquarters and work to digitize the remaining manuscripts was under process.
Digniteries at the national conference on Managing information resources in digital environment releasing the mannual of papers presented at the technical sessions of the one-day conference organized by the CCRUM
Prof. Jamil also said that we are research organization and research begins with library as it answers the first question of research – that is what has been done on a topic – and therefore it is very important to have a library equipped with the state-of-the-art technologies. Prof. Jamil also laid stress on the networking of the Council’s libraries. He said that the Council has six libraries at regional levels, apart from its main library at the headquarters and it is our key priority to network them together.
Addressing the delegates at the inaugural session, the chief guest Prof. Rais-ur-Rahman, Advisor (Unani), Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India spoke on the importance of information and its management. He said that time gone when item bombs were considered to be the most powerful weapon. Today, information and knowledge are the most powerful weapons. Therefore, it is very important to enrich our knowledge base and adopt modern technologies not only to preserve the knowledge, but to make it accessible to the wider global community.
Speaking to the delegates, Dr. A. M. Siddiqui, Director, SIRs said in his introductory remarks that digitization is the current trend in the field of library and information sciences. Libraries have already been digitized in the developed countries. It is good that the developing countries are also following the trend and we are happy that we are contributing in this direction.
Earlier, the dignitaries at the conference released the volume of technical papers to be presented later during the technical sessions of the conference.
A view of the audiance at the inaugural session of the national conference on Managing Information Resources in Digital Environment_CCRUM
Later, at the three technical sessions of the conference, a total of 36 papers were presented by researchers, academicians, librarians, information-based professionals, and students. The theme of the presentation included planning and managing resources, sourcing and organizing information, managing audio-visual resources, digitization and e-documentation of information, planning and management of digital libraries, knowledge creation through information services, etc.
Those who attended the conference included Dr. Rajesh Sigh, University of Delhi, New Delhi; Dr. N. K. Bar, former Director, National Archives of India, New Delhi; Dr. Khalid M Siddiqui, Assistant Director, CCRUM, New Delhi; Mr. Uzzwal Madhav, Executive Director, Lakshya Foundation, New Delhi; Dr. Abdul Hannan, Joint-Director, CCRUM, New Delhi; Mr. Khalid Kamal Faruqi, former Librarian, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi; Dr. M Fazil Khan, Research Officer, CCRUM, New Delhi; Dr. R N Malviya, University Librarian, Lingaya’s University, Faridabad.