ICUDL 2008 targets to discuss innovative issues and challenges involved in digitization in the areas other than books. Various technological usage and new developments in these areas will be open for discussion.

ICUDL 2008 is the fourth in a series of International Conferences on Universal Digital Library. The conference aims further develop the Universal Digital Library (UDL) that will be a portal to foster creativity and free access to all human knowledge. The Million Book Project (MBP) is considered the first milestone towards building this digital library with a free-to-read, searchable collection of one million books in various languages belonging to diversified cultures and civilizations available to people worldwide over the Internet.

The ambitious challenge to create a common knowledge preservation framework for all these heterogeneous data and variety of innovative applications will be achieved through the following objectives:

Ø To focus on various metadata and data holdings for data discovery, access and sharing.

Ø Develop new techniques for calibration and validation, development of new algorithms or generation of high-level and global knowledge preservation database.

Ø To provide an environment for the generation of systematic application technologies along with direct archives and near real-time data access.

Digitization has proven to be possible for nearly every format and medium presently held by libraries, from maps to manuscripts, and moving images to musical recordings. UDL has targeted to explore intensively in the domains of voices, image monuments photographs etc as well and also to explore the technological advancements in each area.



Digitization in an archival environment includes taking a physical object or analog item, such as an art object, a tape recording, a map, or correspondence, from a collection that is rare or unique, often extremely fragile, and taking photographs of the item, and transferring them to a digital medium. The negatives or prints are scanned into digital format such as a JPEG (1,400 pixels) and even larger, TIFF (Tagged Image File Format, 2000 pixels) files. Digital files are imported into, and managed with the use of software programs. Digital files may be read, compressed, transferred and retrieved over computer networks then made accessible and viewed on computer monitors.



Cultural institutions such as museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies house remarkable collections of cultural artifacts. It is our responsibility to preserve, protect the materials, and to the best of their ability, provide continued long-term access.

There are several difficulties to overcome for preservation "lifecycle" of varied scientific, artistic and cultural information, due to the fact that data are dispersed over many different geographically varied data acquisition sites, archive sites, and other locations, other to the lack of descriptive information, i.e. “associated support information” that helps other users to interpret the data, even in the far future.

The goal of this conference is to provide a forum for library and IT professionals to exchange comprehensive views on the recent development and progress in digital library technology, to promote international cooperation in related fields, to advocate universal access to information, and to enhance the global impact of Universal Digital Library Project.

Recognizing the ICUDL2008 as a noble mission, eminent researchers, scientists and decision makers from all over the world will meet in Allahabad , India , during 31st Oct to 2nd Nov 2008. As in the ancient times, it is the same site that has and will witness the peaceful unity of mankind under the eternal umbrella of science, to pursue further development of the UDL. Old and new generations will always be grateful to the visionary scientists who chose to make universal access to knowledge and information their life’s mission.

Participation is sought from all parts of the world and from the full range of disciplines and professions involved in digital library research and practice, including computer science, electrical engineering, information science, information systems, librarian, archival science and practice, museum studies and practices, technology, education and humanities. All domains – academia, government, industry, and others – are encouraged to participate as presenters or attendees.

Submissions on all areas of digital library are welcome and may include research, system, evaluation, policy and position papers. Topics include but are not limited to: Digital library architectures and related concepts Spoken digital library, Monuments and Music Ontology and metadata issues Repositories and preservation Current trends in digital library R&D in the global arena Content organization and knowledge management Information access and multimedia Digital library network and information sharing Full and short papers will be included in the conference proceedings and will be presented at the conference. Papers must be in English with a limit of 10 pages (approximately 5000 words) for full papers and 2 pages for short papers. All papers must be original contributions i.e. have not been previously published or currently under review for publication elsewhere. All contributions are to be submitted in electronic form via the ICUDL 2008 conference web site, following IEEE format guidelines and using the template provided on the conference website ICUDL2008 Pub Instructions Preferred submission formats are Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word.