  We present Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) observations of redshifted
HI 21cm absorption in two low redshift (z=0.2212, z=0.0912) damped Lyman-alpha
systems seen towards the gigahertz peaked source OI 363 (z_em = 0.630). The
object at z=0.0912 is the lowest redshift damped Lyman-alpha system known to
date. Ground based imaging (Rao & Turnshek, 1998) shows that at neither
redshift is there a large spiral galaxy at low impact parameter to the line of
sight to OI 363, in contradiction with the suggestion that these systems are
large proto-disks.
  Since OI 363 is a highly compact, core dominated source, the covering factor
of the HI gas is likely to be unity. Nonetheless, the spin temperatures derived
from the 21cm optical depth (and using the N_HI measured from HST spectra, Rao
& Turnshek, 1998) are high, viz. 1120 +/- 200 K and 825 +/- 110 K for the high
and low redshift systems respectively. These values are considerably higher
than typical values (100 - 200 K) measured in our Galaxy and Andromeda and are,
in fact, similar to those obtained in high redshift damped Lyman-alpha systems.
Our observations hence suggest that evolutionary effects may not be crucial in
understanding the difference in derived spin temperature values between local
spiral disks and high redshift damped Lyman-alpha systems.
