THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Friday was a big day for the State Institute of Encyclopaedic Publications (SIEP) with the institute, best known for its authoritative encyclopaedias or ‘Sarvavijnanakosham,’ launching Phase I of an online encyclopaedia on the State, ‘Kerala Vijnanakosham,’ and inaugurating the work on a ‘Knowledge Web Repository'.Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurated the work on the ‘Knowledge Web Repository’, which involves the development of a content management software and a digital object identifier (DOI), the latter named Kairali. The research project has been approved by the Department of Information Technology, Government of India, and is expected to be completed by November 2012.The SIEP, which operates out of a rented bungalow at DPI Junction, is associating with the city-based agency ‘Space’ for the project. Once completed, the SIEP expects it to be the first of its kind in the country and a useful development for repositories in other Indian languages.Although a Unicode exists for Indian languages, there is no common standard for collecting content in these languages on the web or handling meta-data related to them. This, the SIEP hopes to achieve with its project, which will use open source software.Speaking on the occasion, Chandy stressed the need for timeliness in the development of technology and the need for languages to adapt to new requirements.Minister for Cultural Affairs K C Joseph launched the preliminary stage of the ‘Kerala Vijnanakosham’ at the function. In a nutshell, the web-based ‘Kerala Vijnanakosham’ aims to provide anything and everything about God’s Own Country at the click of a mouse.On Friday, the section on Kasargod, the first district to be documented for this unique encyclopaedia, was unveiled in Thiruvananthapuram. The ‘Kerala Vijnanakosham’ hopes to overcome the lack of a comprehensive window on the State. This encyclopaedia can be accessed via www.sarva.gov.in, the official website of SIEP. It is being prepared using Linux.Shashi Tharoor MP and SIEP director M R Thampan were also present on the occasion.
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