NMML, a repository of the personal memorabilia of the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, was founded at the initiative of the government under the ministry of culture in 1964 after Nehru's death. Housed at Teen Murti Bhavan where Nehru lived, it also serves as an advanced research centre.

It has been allocated Rs.26.50 crore in the budget by the culture ministry for modernisation, said a senior official of NMML.

In a statement on the website of the museum, Director Mridula Mukherjee said: 'The entire activities of the library will be automated through computerisation, thereby reducing paper work.'

Mukherjee, who is out of the country at the moment, said in the statement that the digitisation work has two objectives - preservation and to make the contents available to the world.

The digitisation committee, which met in January 2009 to approve the bids for it, shortlisted 10 vendors in May. The terms of reference to the shortlisted vendors have been issued in June.

Citing new projects initiated by the library, an official said the director has been reaching out to rural, marginalised and challenged children across the country with the message and values of Mahatma Gandhi and the secular and scientific ideals of Nehru through interactive programmes based on music, painting, dance and theatre.

The library has seen several eminent personalities like V.P. Singh, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King III, Amitav Ghosh, Medha Patkar, M.S. Swaminathan and Robert Jessop debate on issues like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, right to information, the Gandhian Legacy, globalisation and the environment.