Availability of Open Access Books in Punjabi over Different Web Portals: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

Punjabi is the eleventh largely spoken language of the world. It is the mother tongue of 120 million Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians inhibiting the vast stretch from Multan to Delhi in the North-West of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Of the total 120 million speakers, 76 million are in Pakistan and 33 million in India. Punjabi diaspora in 35 countries, especially in North America, Europe and Australia has taken its culture to the adopted countries. By another account, Punjabi has registered its presence in 150 countries of the world. No wonder then Punjabi is the second largest spoken language in England and ranks third in British Columbia, Canada. In the age of information communication technology (ICT), a large number of multilingual e-books are freely available over Internet on different subjects. Books in Punjabi (Gurmukhi) have no exception of this influence as several web portals and digital libraries also provide open access electronic/digitized books in Punjabi. The present study talks about them.

Keywords: Sikh book club, Punjabi library, APNA, Unistar Books, PDL

Cite this Article Sukhdev Singh. Availability of Open Access Books in Punjabi over Different Web Portals: A Descriptive Study. Journal of Advancements in Library Sciences. 2017; 4(3): 86–93p.