Vision

Develop a sustainable knowledge portal for design study and research based on an integrated information management system with the applications of state-of-the-art ICTs.

The National Resource Centre (NRC) with its network of 16 Resource Centres (RCs) is the custodian of design intelligence and scholarship at NIFT. NRC was set up in 1986, the year NIFT was established. During the initial years the library and textile professionals, in cooperation with the faculty, painstakingly collected learning resources and cultural artifacts from all over India and abroad to develop this unique repository. Since its inception NRC combined the roles of a library and to some extent that of the other memory institutions such as archive and museum in preservation, discovery and dissemination. In 1995 NRC began coordinating development of the Resource Centres in seven new campuses of NIFT. With the emergence of the new millennium as NIFT developed into an institution of design research and added new campuses, NRC at New Delhi evolved from a static repository of knowledge resources into a full-fledged coordinating body of the Network of NIFT Resource Centres. Since then this Network has been functioning as a Fashion Information System (FIS) catering to the dynamic information needs of fashion professionals, would-be professionals and fashion educators. Its integrated collections of print, digital, audio and materials resources are the only systematically documented learning resources available in India for the study of international and contemporary Indian fashion.
At present NRC is exploring new vistas as it is situated at the intersection of multiple ideas related to Design Education, Material Culture, Cultural and Social Informatics including Digital Library and Virtual Museums.

Activities of NRC:

NRC coordinates development of all the Resource Centres (RCs) related to collection development, information service management, automation, standardization and planning of human resources and infrastructure. The department manages the consortium of all RCs to achieve optimum resource sharing and cost-effectiveness in acquisition of learning resources. NRC coordinates functioning of the cloud based multi-location library management software, e-Granthalaya of NIC, that offers access to students and faculty of NIFT to the union catalogues and user services of all the Resource Centres.

NRC has undertaken various activities related to digital preservation of select print and non-print materials in the collections of RCs. It is engaged in creation of an institutional repository with various sub-repositories such as that of graduation project reports, dissertations, theses and other intellectual and creative assets of the institution. A repository of craft cluster reports and artifacts is also under construction for the Craft Cluster project of NIFT.