Bhubaneswar, Oct. 25: The Odia Wikisource, an online digital library run by Wikipedia, turned a year old today.

The number of visitors to the website has increased from a mere hundred to over 20,000 per month in the past one year.

The project, under the aegis of Wikidemia Foundation, is run by a few young programme developers from the city. It was launched last year after a two-year incubation period.

"The website provides free and open access of rare Odia books to readers. It also allows users to contribute by either digitising copyright-free texts or correcting mistakes made by others," said the administrator of Odia Wikisource, Mrutyunjaya Kar.

At present, there are around 10 active contributors to the project. In the past one year, 219 rare Odia works, including books, journals and articles, have been made available online.

The techies feel that a significant rise in the number of unique visitors is a witness to the growing popularity of digital libraries in the city.

"A large number of youngsters between the age group of 18 and 25 have been accessing the online content for the past few months. Many a times, people fail to access Odia literature as they are not always readily available. So, the digitised versions of the books have become an easier option," said Subhashish Panigrahi, programme officer at Centre for Internet and Society and a regular contributor to Odia Wikisource.

A number of popular Odia books such as Odia Bhagbata by Jagannath Das, Chha Mana Atha Guntha by Fakir Mohan Senapati, Tapaswini by Gangadhar Meher are available on the portal.

All the works are uploaded in universal web-compatible Unicode font for Odia language that was developed in 2000.

"Unless content is available in Unicode, it will not be searchable, sharable and reusable on the Internet," added Panigrahi.

The young volunteers are working towards encouraging authors and copyright holders to provide permission for re-licencing so that their works become accessible on the online platform.

"Last year, the Wikimedia community in Odisha brought around 141 books from multiple authors under free licences to widen the reach of Odia literature. We are also trying to figure out the books regarded as valuable in the literary community. Thereafter, we will begin the process of digitising the works," said Pankajmala Sarangi, one of the most active contributors to the project.