USERS of Myanmar’s e-library system will now have to pay to download some articles and photographs from the Universities’ Central Library (UCL) system, said one UCL librarian.

Charges for the system, launched this March 11, were introduced in August.
“We have separated users into gold card or silver card holders. Gold card holders are charged K10,000 for a full year’s membership, while silver members will get six months’ access for K5000,” said librarian Daw Tin Win Yi, who works for UCL at Yangon University.

“People who are interested can register at Inforithm Maze Company at La Pyaut Wun Plaza to receive a card,” she said.

The majority of the e-library resources will remain free of charge and only selected materials – including archive photographs, articles, paintings and students theses – will require payment.

Under the Ministry of Education, UCL has been responsible for uploading a variety of current and old sources onto the system. Included are English and Myanmar books, old journals like Journal Kyaw, older magazines like Owai, newspapers like The Hanthawaddy Weekly Review and many more, Daw Tin Win Yi said.

“All these antique magazines, newspapers and journals have been held by UCL for a long time. They are very rare and can’t be found elsewhere, so we digitalised them and then uploaded them onto the system,” she said, adding that these materials require payment to access.

The database also offers over 1300 articles on business, social, culture and religion published by the Burma Research Society between 1911 and 1977.

Daw Tin Win Yi said UCL will also add four million articles from the HW Wilson business site. Some 25,000 university papers and theses are also available.
E-library satellite terminals are available at 38 universities across the country.