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 Increasing access to Local Language Content

Presenter:Shaseevan Ganeshananthan

Project “Noolaham”

Contents

Problem Statement

Motivation

What is Project Noolaham?

Features &Functionality

Financial Costs

Benefits Achieved

Challenges Faced

Future Work

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Problem Statement

Relevant local content has to be made accessible.

Different categories of Tamil speaking communities exist in

Sri Lanka.

Need to access their language content through various

means.

To conduct research and to make researchers get involved

in the welfare of these communities

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Motivation

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To preserve Sri Lankan Tamil related documents, research papers, publications and archive them.

To create a Tamil digital library accessible to all.

To engage in research.

To collaborate with similar efforts.

Project “Noolaham”

Project “Noolaham” is a non profitable, collective and ‐

voluntary endeavor

Aims to preserve Sri Lankan Tamil related publications in

digital format

Enables increased access to the traditional local language

content

“Noolaham” Foundation collaborates with various

institutions and projects in order to create a collaborative

Virtual Digital Library (VDL).

What is Project “Noolaham”?

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Participants from all around the world (including India

Direct participation in digitization, monetary donations,

wiki contribution and coordination of projects

Collaboration made with various organizations like WERC

Many prominent publishers reposit their work at Noolaham

Noolaham is truly global by virtue of its participants and

functioning

Participation

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Muhappu Seyathittam (Front Page Project)

Ithazhagam Project

Colombo Scanning Project, 2008

Trincomalee Scanning Project, 2008

Thamizham Pollachi Nasan Project

Sub Projects Carried Out

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Growth of Noolaham

8

100

362

1618

2888

3800

Year

Digitized Documents2005

2006

2007

2008

June 2009

Noolaham System

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NoolahamDocument Types

Books

Magazines

Newspapers

Pamphlets

Research Papers

CategoriesAuthors

Year of Publication

Publishers

Book Type

Network

PortalsMallihai

Grantha

Documents Added each Year

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2005 2006 2007 20080

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

100

262

1256 1270

No of New Documents

Sectional Overview

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31%

58%

9% 1%

Digitized Documents (Until June 2009)

BooksMagazinesNewspapersPamphlets

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

No of UsersExponential (No of Users)

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Unique Visits per Month

MediaWiki – Open Source Software

Designed for open collaboration

Registered users can edit the web pages

Pages are creating using Wiki Markup

All Contribution are logged in the Mediawiki System

Archiving

Scanned documents

The scanned images will be converted to text using Optical

Character Recognition (OCR) technology when it is viable.

Technology

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Easy Quick Navigation Bar

Main Menu Bar

Donation Template

You can donate with

Paypal

Noolaham Short Intro

Prominent Newly Added

Documents

Search Bar

Noolaham Document

List

Browse by Category

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Financial Cost (2005 -2008)

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DonationsBank Interest

0100000200000300000400000500000600000700000800000 702962

990.85

RevenueProjects Hosting Backup Printing Bank

Charges

0

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

700,000 633890

587729300 1000 351.4

ExpenditureTotal Revenue

703,952.85Total Expenditure

703,313.40

Benefits Achieved

Enables increased access to traditional local language

content

Supports cognitive work of scholars and researchers

Literary Heritage is being preserved for future generation

Enables social interaction for the achievement of

constructive social outcomes

Functions as a repository for various institutions

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Challenges Faced

Noolaham Depends on Voluntary Contribution

Insufficient Voluntary Contribution

Slows the pace of the work being done

Financial Difficulties

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Future Work

To implement web 2.0 concepts in to the system

Empower researchers/users to collaborate in knowledge

creation

Communicate this to schools, universities, libraries and

private institutions

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A Last Thought..

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“The ready availability of relevant local language content is critical for the development of productive capacity…

Without locally relevant content in local languages, immediate uses of ICTs for day-to-day activities may not

be apparent.”

- Danny Butt and Madanmohan Rao (PAN Localisation - Authors’ Working Group on Content)

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THANK YOU !