Before the internet reached Indian desks, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs faced a quiet but costly problem: vital research findings were locked away inside individual institutions, with no reliable way to discover or share them. A research paper produced in one laboratory rarely reached another that needed it most. To solve this, the government created a dedicated programme to stitch the country’s scattered scientific information resources into a single, coordinated network. That programme was the National Information System for Science and Technology (NISSAT), and for 25 years it shaped how scientific and technical knowledge moved across the nation.
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The birth of NISSAT
The story of NISSAT begins with a recognition that scientific progress depends on access to information. In the early 1970s, information centres serving industries and research and development units were growing in an unplanned way. There was duplication of effort, no common standards, and no easy way to connect one centre’s resources to another. A coordinated, integrated system was needed to fix this.
The idea took shape through international collaboration. In 1971, the Government of India approached UNESCO for advice on building a national science and technology information network. UNESCO expert Dr. Peter Lazar studied the situation and submitted a detailed report in 1972 that outlined what such a system could look like. His blueprint was prepared at the request of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and later became the foundation for the final plan.
The proposal moved through the right channels. The Panel Group of the National Committee on Science and Technology (NCST) recommended establishing the system under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and it was folded into the science and technology component of the Fifth Five-Year Plan. NISSAT was formally launched in 1977 under the Department of Science and Technology. Following a government reorganisation in 1985, NISSAT was placed under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) within the Ministry of Science and Technology, where its national focal point operated from New Delhi.
What NISSAT set out to do
NISSAT was less a single information system and more a national programme that linked many systems together. It functioned as a decentralised network using standardised and mutually compatible methods for collecting, storing, and sharing information. Rather than building one giant central database, it connected existing resources and made them work together.
Its core objectives were clear and practical:
- Coordination: To interlink and coordinate information sources, systems, and services into one effective network under a single coordinating agency.
- Avoiding duplication: To prevent the haphazard growth and repeated effort that came from isolated information centres working in silos.
- Modern tools: To introduce modern information-handling techniques, including computerisation, following uniform standards.
- International cooperation: To build bridges between Indian information producers and users and their counterparts abroad, so that knowledge generated overseas could also benefit local research.
Promoting information networks and sectoral centres
The most visible work of NISSAT was building the infrastructure for knowledge sharing. It did this in two main ways: by setting up specialised sectoral information centres, and by sponsoring city-based library networks that allowed institutions to pool their collections.
Sectoral information centres
NISSAT established a series of Sectoral Information Centres (SICs), each focused on a specific field of science or industry. The idea was simple but powerful. Instead of expecting every library to be an expert in everything, each centre became a deep specialist in its own domain while staying connected to the wider network. These centres were built around existing resources and maintained large collections of published and unpublished documents, including research reports and trade literature.
The range of sectors covered was wide. Among the centres NISSAT supported were those focused on leather technology (NICLAI), food science and technology (NICFOS), machine tools and production (NICMAP), drugs and pharmaceuticals (NICDAP), textiles, chemicals, advanced ceramics, crystallography, and bibliometrics. Each centre offered services such as Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI), Current Awareness Services (CAS), and technical inquiry support to academics, scientists, technologists, and industry decision-makers.
NISSAT also moved into more specialised territory. It set up Value Added Patent Information Systems (VAPIS) at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune and the Central Manufacturing Technology Institute in Bangalore. These offered patent and intellectual property information drawn from US, European, Japanese, and other patent databases available on CD-ROM, giving Indian industry a practical edge in understanding the global technology landscape.
City library networks
Perhaps the most lasting structural contribution of NISSAT was its role in launching India’s first library networks. Until the late 1980s, library networks were almost non-existent in the country, largely because communication technology was limited. NISSAT changed that by funding and promoting metropolitan networks that let libraries share resources.
The growth of these networks can be traced to NISSAT’s initiatives starting in 1986. The Calcutta Library Network (CALIBNET) was established in 1986 with NISSAT funding, linking around 38 libraries in the Calcutta region. The Delhi Library Network (DELNET) followed, starting at the India International Centre Library in 1988 with initial support from NISSAT and the DSIR, before being registered as a society in 1992.
NISSAT’s networking reach extended to several other cities, seeding what would become a family of metropolitan networks including MALIBNET in Madras, MYLIBNET in Mysore, BONET in Bombay, PUNENET in Pune, ADINET in Ahmedabad, and HYLIBNET in Hyderabad. These networks built union catalogues, enabled inter-library loans, and gave users online access to bibliographic records across member libraries. The aim throughout was better use of science and technology information, reduced workload on individual centres, and improved communication between institutions.
The legacy of NISSAT
NISSAT was operational from 1977 until it was wound down in March 2002, after 25 years of work. Although the programme itself closed, its influence on library and information science in the country runs deep. Three contributions stand out.
Software development and CDS/ISIS
One of NISSAT’s most practical legacies was making library automation affordable and accessible. It acquired two software packages from UNESCO for distribution to Indian institutions: CDS/ISIS for bibliographic processing and retrieval, and IDAMS for statistical data processing. CDS/ISIS, which stands for Computerised Documentation Service / Integrated Set of Information Systems, was a generalised information storage and retrieval package that UNESCO offered free for non-commercial purposes, making it ideal for small and medium libraries with tight budgets.
NISSAT served as the national distribution centre for CDS/ISIS, and the uptake was significant. Reports from the period count roughly 1,940 CDS/ISIS installations and around 100 IDAMS installations across the country. NISSAT did not stop at distribution. Working with DESIDOC, it helped develop an indigenous package called SANJAY for automating routine library housekeeping and service functions. It also supported the development of the MAITRAYEE software for CALIBNET. This combination of imported and home-grown tools laid the groundwork for library automation in India.
Training and manpower development
Software is only useful if people know how to use it. NISSAT understood this and invested heavily in building the skills of library and information professionals. It encouraged and supported numerous training programmes covering the application of computers in libraries, the use of personal computers and CDS/ISIS, total quality management in library services, technical communication, scientometrics, and CD-ROM and online searching.
This training effort had a quiet but profound impact. Through these courses, an entire generation of Indian library professionals became computer literate at a time when computing itself was still new to most workplaces. The programme effectively turned the abstract idea of digital libraries into a working reality by preparing the human resources needed to run them.
Lasting impact on LIS networks
The networks NISSAT seeded did not disappear when the programme closed. DELNET, in particular, grew far beyond its origins to become a major resource-sharing network serving thousands of libraries, supported in later years by the National Informatics Centre and other government bodies. CALIBNET continued to serve the eastern region. The networking model NISSAT pioneered also influenced the design of larger national initiatives. The INFLIBNET Centre, set up by the University Grants Commission, drew on the same philosophy of interlinking libraries and avoiding duplication to serve universities and research institutions nationwide.
Seen as a whole, NISSAT’s contribution was to professionalise and modernise the way scientific information was managed in the country. It introduced standards, promoted resource sharing over isolation, championed automation, and built the human and technical foundations on which today’s digital library ecosystem rests. Many of the practices that now seem ordinary, such as shared union catalogues and computerised retrieval, trace their roots to this programme.
What do you think? If NISSAT had continued operating into the broadband and cloud era instead of closing in 2002, how might India’s scientific information landscape look different today? And what lessons from NISSAT’s decentralised, network-based approach remain relevant for managing the flood of digital research output we generate now?
References
- https://dst.gov.in/
- https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/lisp4/chapter/organisation-of-national-information-systems-and-programmes/
- http://web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT'89/89-251-mangla.html
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/national-information-systems
- https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/lisp5/chapter/library-networks-in-india-case-study-inflibnet/
- https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/lisp5/chapter/library-network-in-india-case-study-delnet/
- https://worldlibraries.dom.edu/index.php/worldlib/article/download/351/307?inline=1
- https://testbook.com/question-answer/in-which-year-was-the-national-information-s–676abd8937d428e0169d45e7
- https://www.studocu.com/in/document/mahatma-gandhi-university/information-system/indest-consortia-essay/29998323
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDS_ISIS
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_networks_in_India
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