DIGITAL ARCHIVING OF MEDICINAL PLANTS WITH THE OPEN SOURCE DIGITAL LIBRARY SOFTWARE GREENSTONE

Recognition of the role the Information technology can play in Knowledge Management is well acclaimed. Digital libraries and archiving have significance in preserving and disseminating knowledge in art, culture, education, science, technology, literature and humanities. LIS professionals increasingly take up the responsibility in preserving and disseminating not only the metadata of information sources but also experimenting and associating with the risks of untested methods and areas of knowledge. Launch of Open Source Digital Library Software has added further fillip to their efforts and in democratizing sharing, distributing and transmitting it for the effective of information/knowledge in the realms of research and development, teaching and learning. The strategies for digital preservation are shaped by the needs and requirements of the users of scholarly information . The article gives an account of developing a prototype of Digital Repository of Medicinal Plants by using Greenstone Digital Library Software. Though the prototype targets the learning-teaching community, the Greenstone Digital Library Software provides enormous capacity to incorporate documentation on protocols on safety, efficacy, standardization, ethno pharmacological knowledge, bio images, audio etc., providing ample scope for further research on the subject