PDL introduces free downloads, initially pamphlets.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Chandigarh, 4 October 2017 — Panjab Digital Library (PDL) today opened its treasure by allowing downloads from its website www.PanjabDigiLib.org. The facility comes at no cost to users following the NGO’s policy of providing free access to the plethora of data.Considering the constant demand of users, initially about 1300 pamphlets have been made downloadable. This will help people read those from their devices at leisure. It also allows users to distribute the documents in their networks thus maximizing the outreach, which is also one of our objectives.The pamphlets cover expanse of all the nooks and corners of Panjab and span of over a century, which help in mapping the history and culture of Panjab temporally as well as spatially. Many of these pamphlets belong to the pre-partition era.Davinder Pal Singh, co-founder of PDL shared, “Priority was given to pamphlets as they are a bit special. Books are generally published at a larger scale, and possibility of their availability in institutional as well as personal libraries makes it still easier to get hold of them. Pamphlets, on the other hand, are usually printed by individuals or organization on a smaller scale. Usually a few hundred copies of pamphlets are printed and are mostly distributed amongst the community free of cost. Most of these generally remain unpreserved thus making them unavailable for research.” He further added, “The download facility for pamphlets has been supported by Mr G B Singh of Galaxy Developers who generously chose to sponsor this, and PDL now looks ahead to get sponsors for the other categories to be made available for free downloads.”“PDL will estimate and analyze the load on its server and its bandwidth usage before taking decision to make more categories downloadable. If the results allow extending the facility to the other categories, PDL will be glad to make PDFs available for other categories in future”, added Gurvinder Singh, a Board Member from USA, “PDL also takes this opportunity to appeal to individuals and organizations to share their collection of pamphlets for digitization. This will help us add more to the knowledge base and share invaluable treasures of heritage.”

Nice ! If PDL moves their infrastructure to Cloud Platform then they need not worry about bandwidth and webserver loads.

Bhul Chuk Maaf.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa,
Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.

I am surprised that they are worried about bandwidth. Its not like they are running amazon or a big e-shop. Its a digital library and that too punjabi language based. How much load could there be? How many visitors per day there could be. 100? 1000? Hardly.

Kinna ku kharcha aa juga?

Simple jehi gall hai. Reliance yan airtel nal sidhi gall karan di lorh hai. Har ikk company thoda bahut budget charities vaste rakhdi hundi hai. They would probably give them the bandwidth for free because PDL has a good standing with universities and literary circles.

And in any case there is a simple way of overcoming this. That is, to share all there data with private parties. Distribute the data. If data is available at multiple places there could hardly be any rush of visitors.

For example I get all my MP3 from gurbani updesh or gurmat veechar website. I never ever visit sikhnet.com, simply because many years ago i decided they were mixing other religions with sikhi sidhant and that they had typical Gora mentality of taking things from east and then making it a dollar business. Just like they did with yoga, just like they did with neo-advaita and many other things they could find in India.

So the point being if PDL allows private websites to host they same data the load would be distributed.

Aiven nikki jehi gall nu vadda bana rahe ne.

Some years ago I had an argument with PDL on its facebook page. I said they did not have any clean intentions otherwise they would allow downloads. That one way of manipulating and subjugating a culture is taking control of its literature and its heritage. I accused them of playing in hands of the goverment. The person on the other end defended himself saying that downloads are available but you'd had to contact our office at Patiala and they would allow you.

Again, this is a rant, I know, but I get irritated by such arguments. Aiven jhoothey bahane banaunde rahe hun takk.

Even I had the same opinion some time back. Each of their project is financially sponsored. They do not start project until they find sponsor for it. Then why they do not allow free download when the project is completed. It's like taking control of full literature and getting paid at the same time.

Bhul Chuk Maaf.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa,
Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.

Punjab Digital Library which is like a business is managed by Sikh Research Institute ( missionaries ). They will not get free downloads of Gurmat Literature to the sangat without a price. One cannot even join the digital library without providing their social security number. If you control the information then you can shape Gurmat to which ever image you want.

Can Jaskirat, Suthra and eyesacademic do what PDL has done? Have you ever sponsored any project in your own local community / gurdwara? If not, please remember that every project needs funding. And our community does not believe in funding any such projects which have long term value.

So lets not criticize them. If you can do something better, please do so.

Moderators please note that we are on a forum where we should love and respect all instead of branding them missionaries or any such thing. We are all aspirant Guru Sikhs and if we some one has a different understanding doesn't mean he is reactionary. Widen your thinking guys and please stop branding others.

PS - I personally know nothing about the individuals behind PDL, but their work is commendable. Lets not get offended if they are not giving you freebies Suthra.

Hsingh

Kavi Santokh Singh mentioned there are 4 types of Sikhs. One is a Sikh the most lowest type of Sikh is he who adpopts adopts Sikhi for monetary gain . The most admirable Gursikhs are ones that join Sikhi to gain wealth of Naam . I dont need any freebies I make an honest living and I can buy my own books. But if I had a genuine intention of propagating Gurmat literature digitally then I would make it more accessible through PDF files like most Gursikhs do when doing such seva. Having such restricted access to knowledge is not very Gursikh like and is akin to Brahminism. Sikh Research Institute is a missionary institute this is a fact. Dont take my word do some personal research on the group. Im not sure with 100% certainty that Punjab Digital Library is ran by S.R.I. but this is what I have been told. S.R.I corporation have so many names under its umbrella its hard to keep track of their scheming activities .

hsingh60 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can Jaskirat, Suthra and eyesacademic do what PDL
> has done? Have you ever sponsored any project in
> your own local community / gurdwara? If not,
> please remember that every project needs funding.
> And our community does not believe in funding any
> such projects which have long term value.
>
hsingh60 you are ill-informed and your awareness about freedom of knowledge is very little.

What is your understanding of free knowledge? Have you read about it? How much have you thought about it? Do you know the future implications of a situation in which lets say important historical literature are lost or destroyed or even confiscated by Indian government and then all your historical knowledge is controlled by a corporation?

What do you know at all?


What you, sadly, do not understand that this is NOT about freebies.

Richard Stallman famously said these important words

" Think free as in free speech, not free beer"

I would strongly advise you to watch this video, which, I know is basically on the topic of software, especially open source software but it also touches on VERY important topic of freedom.
http://freespeechdebate.com/media/richard-stallman-on-free-software/

Your allegation that we are talking about money shows that you hardly know anything about the topic on hand. This is not about money. Its about CONTROL. Its about control of important historical documents of a religio-cultural group, and then creating a possibility of corporate misuse and even misrepresentation.

The implications are very far reaching and wide in scope. Concentration of knowledge in hands of few is dangerous. If you do not understand this then you are definitely a child.

Its your mistake that you think that this is an issue of buying books versus getting free PDFs. This is a childish view of an important issue. Just like historical gurdwarey were destroyed in the name of making them anew ( Fatehgarh Sahib, Thanda Burj as one example out of many), historical knowledge of Sikhs is being collected and then controlled.

And childish people like you say Oh I have money so I can pay and PDL is doing very good work. In your eyes perhaps SGPC must also be doing good work then?

So let me ask you a question, SGPC also prints gurbani and scores of books. But it is also fully in pocket of Sukhbir Badal. So whats your view then, should be speak out against SGPC's position or should we just keep shut because "at least SGPC is doing SOME good work"?

If anyone wants a pdf versions of something from PDL, PM me.

I have come up with a small script file to fetch all the images from PDL and make a pdf.

Thank you eyesacademic for telling me that I am stupid.

No government, no people can harm us if we are connected to our guru - and follow his rehat. Period.

I have nothing further to say.