Taking its online presence to a whole new level, British Council India has re-launched its digital library services, ramping it up with new attractions. While the regular online membership gave users unlimited checkouts of e-journals and academic e-books, the latest version takes it up a notch by offering access to films, documentaries, magazines and works of English literature. All of this, at an introductory offer of `999 per year.
Administered from the Delhi branch, the premium online membership will see inclusion of three new online portals that the British Council is tying up with. The first, IndieFlix, is a repertoire of thousands of award-winning indie films, short films and documentaries from across the world. For those who like to go beyond the regular cinema fare available at the local theatres and television, this is a great addition.
Second, there’s Zinio, a portal for international digital magazines. Users can read international magazines at their desktop, delivered at the onset of every month. The latest and back issues of leading magazines like The Economist (UK Edition), Top Gear, Lonely Planet, Ideal Home, BBC Music and more will be made available. And last new addition is Literature Online, a library of over 3.5 lakh full-text works of English literature. It includes poetry, plays and fiction as well as general reference works and links to other websites.
Apart from these three services, users can access over 1 lakh full-text downloadable academic books. The complete database covers areas like humanities, engineering, IT and computers, management, medical sciences, English language, business communication, literature, law, history, social sciences and others. They’re also offering their regular access to e-journals. For registrations, head to www.library.britishcouncil.org.in. The username and password will be sent across on the day of registration.