DUSHANBE, May 22, Asia-Plus -- New electronic resources will be available in Tajikistan soon.

Shahlo Musoyeva, chairperson of the culture directorate of the Dushanbe mayor’s office, said that the first Tajik electronic library, also known as digital or virtual library, will be opened in Dushanbe soon.  Readers will have access to electronic scientific works, journals and media, according to her.  

Musoyeva said that the electronic library will be placed in the branch of the City Abulqosim Lohuti Library, which is located on the Ahmadi Donish Street. 

“The building is currently being repaired,” said Musoyeva, “The Dushanbe culture directorate has paid all expenses on repairing the building and purchasing office equipment.” 

An electronic library is a library  in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform , or other media) and accessible by computers.  The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks.  

Traditional libraries are limited by storage space; electronic libraries have the potential to store much more information, simply because digital information requires very little physical space to contain it.  As such, the cost of an electronic library is much lower than that of a traditional library.  A traditional library must spend large sums of money paying for staff, book maintenance, rent, and additional books. Digital libraries do away with these fees.

Electronic libraries can immediately adopt innovations in technology providing users with improvements in electronic and audio book technology as well as presenting new forms of communication such as wikis and blogs.