UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium Research Articles

Awareness and Use Pattern of E-ShodhSindhu Resources: A Case Study of Sri Venkateswara University Library, Andhra Pradesh

Library Consortia is a network for the purchasing and accessing e-information to provide immediate access to greater resources for users of individual libraries. The e-ShodhSindhu is the Consortium for Higher Education E-Resources merging three consortia, i.e. UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium, INDEST-AICTE Consortium and N-LIST in December 2015. The e-ShodhSindhu is meant to supply current and depository access to E-Resources i.e. E-books, e-journals, e-journal archives, on-line databases to its member establishments at a negotiated rate of subscription. The purpose of this paper is to find out user awareness and usage of e-ShodhSindhu Digital Library Consortium by Faculty Members and Research Scholars of Sri Venkateswara University. A structured questionnaire was designed and randomly distributed to 350 respondents for data collection, among the faculty members and research scholars. Out of which, 274 filled-in questionnaires were returned. The study reveals that most of the respondents are aware and use digital library consortium but there is a need to conduct more awareness/training programs for enhancing the use of e-ShodhSindhu Digital Library Consortium.

Awareness and usage pattern of e-shodhsindhu resources: A case study of sri venkateswara university library users

Library Consortia is a network for the purchasing and accessing e-information to provide immediate access to greater resources for users of individual libraries. The e-ShodhSindhu is the Consortium for Higher Education E-Resources merging three consortia, i.e. UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium, INDEST-AICTE Consortium and N-LIST in December 2015. The e-ShodhSindhu is meant to supply current and depository access to E-Resources i.e. e-books, e-journals, e-journal archives, on-line databases to its member establishments at a negotiated rate of subscription. The purpose of this paper is to find out user awareness and usage of e-ShodhSindhu Digital Library Consortium by Faculty Members and Research Scholars of Sri Venkateswara University. A structured questionnaire was designed and randomly distributed to 350 respondents for data collection, among the faculty members and research scholars. Out of which, 274filled-in questionnaires were returned. The study reveals that most of the respondents are aware and use digital library consortium but there is a need to conduct more awareness/training programs for enhancing the use of e-ShodhSindhu Digital Library Consortium.

Use of electronic resources among teachers and scholars in Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (Bharat): A survey

The advancement of the information technology and web technology have brought changes to existing information storage and retrieval system such as Digital library, online database, digital repository, virtual library, etc. Libraries have witnessed tremendous changes in recent years in terms of their collection and services. Information explosion and user's demand of the users required the development of a more comprehensive library collection. Publishers have now started publishing on-line version/electronic versions of their printed journals. Owing to the cost of journals, many colleges and universities are unable to procure these journals. Ministry of HRD and UGC has started procuring the e-resources from the 25 world-class publishers under consortia mode at a much reduced price for all university libraries. BHU library is one of the beneficiaries of this UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium. The present study is the part of Ph.D. research work of one of the authors. To ascertain the usage of the e-resources available to the BHU library by the teachers and scholars, this survey was conducted. The present investigation discusses the use of electronic resources (e-journals, e-books, online/ offline databases, web resources) which are made available by the INFLIBNET Centre in e-resource consortium like UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium by the teachers and scholars of BHU. The present study was conducted as a part of doctoral research work from January 2015 to July 2015.

Awareness of electronic resources with special reference to ugc-infonet program of kumaun university, nainital: A user study of D.S.B. Campus, Nainital

The purpose of this study is to assess the use of e-resources by the Faculty members, Research Scholars and Post Graduate Students in the Central library of Kumaun University Nainital. The focus of the study is an in-depth analysis of the e-resources among the faculty members, researchers and post graduate students and how they use the e-resources along with their preferred choices. Also, the awareness of available e-resources under the UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium in university library is considered.

Use of E-Resources in the e-ShodhSindhu Consortium: A Study of North Bengal University Library Users

The e-ShodhSindu is the Consortia for Higher Education E-Resources merging three consortia, i.e. UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium, INDEST-AICTE Consortium and N-LIST. The e-ShodhSindhu is intended to provide current and archival access to E-Resources i.e. e-books, e-journals, e-journal archives, online databases to its member institutions at a negotiated rate of subscription. This paper studies the use of e-resources in the e-ShodhSindhu Consortium by the North Bengal University Library users. 150 questionnaires were distributed among the faculty members and research scholars. Out of which, 110 filled-in questionnaires were returned. The study reveals that most of the respondents are satisfied with e-resources available in the e-ShodhSindhu Consortium.

E-ShodhSindhu Consortium: Awareness and Use

At present the university libraries in India are actively engaged in incorporating electronic information resources and services. Ever-increasing prices of journal have forced institutions to resort to alternatives like consortia for resource sharing that offer access to electronic resources, bibliographic databases and services through Internet and World Wide Web. UGC had initiated Infonet E-journals Consortium. Recently MHRD formed e-ShodhSindhu merging three consortia, namely UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium, NLIST and INDEST-AICTE Consortium. Banasthali University library in Rajasthan is providing access to e-ShodhSindhu E-journals Consortium to its research community. This study seeks to examine how far the research community is aware of and is making use of e-ShodhSindhu E-journals Consortium. The study also seeks to examine the influence of Consortium on the users' research, to identify difficulties faced by the research scholars while accessing the Consortium and to make a few suggestions to strengthen the e-ShodhSindhu E-journals Consortium.

Interlending and document delivery in India through INFLIBNET and the UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the J-Gate Plus Discovery and Resource Sharing Model, and to examine the interlending and document delivery service within the Indian university system and the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium. Design/methodology/approach This paper describes the functionalities of J-Gate Plus services and discusses how it become a successful product in the Indian academic sector. Finally, the paper analyses the search trends and document delivery request reports. Findings Information and Library Network, Inter-library loan Centres (universities) and J-Gate@UGC-Infonet are cooperating to facilitate resource sharing in India and to gradually expand their roles to other academic library systems. Originality/value The paper is an up-to-date study of resource sharing in the Indian university system through the J-Gate@UGC-Infonet service.

Effective Resource-Sharing and Document Delivery Among Indian Universities: A Study From the INFLIBNET Perspective

Resource-sharing normally follows a network of libraries with decent rules and regulations and provides a common platform for libraries and library staffs to come together, communicate, and extend help to enhance access to information and fulfill the unexpected demands of users. This article studies the use of interlibrary loan and document delivery service at the Information and Library Network Centre under the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium program. Universities that come under the purview of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Government of India, become members of UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium. The article discusses the recent literature on resource-sharing through interlibrary loan and document delivery service practice in the Indian context. This article suggests improvement of J-Gate Plus discovery and resource-sharing service to enhance access to information resources and for better document delivery.

UGC-Infonet digital library consortium: An evaluation

The UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium was launched in 2004 in which free access to scholarly literature from international publishers has been subscribed and made accessible to Indian universities. Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) is monitoring and executing this programme under the egis of University Grants Commission (UGC), India. The UGC has been spending millions of rupees in subscription of scholarly journals and providing free access to these scholarly resources to Indian universities. Since a huge amount of money is being spent on subscription of scholarly online resources, there is a need to evaluate utilization and impact of this programme. This paper is a preliminary evaluation of UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium of India, in which an effort is made to evaluate UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium with respect to usage of subscribed resources by the member universities, economy involved and research output of the member universities.

Measuring Psychology Research Output of Indian Universities

UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium was formally launched in the year 2004. Through this programme, University Grants Commission (UGC) provided free access to scholarly electronic journals of internationally renowned publishers to all Indian universities who are directly coming under the preview of UGC. One of the main objectives of introducing UGC-Infonet was to improve quantity and quality of Indian scholarly literature at international level in all areas of learning. In this paper an attempt is being made to analyses the status of research output in area of Psychology . A broad evaluation is being made to assess articles produced by India and especially by those universities who have been freely accessing UGC-Infonet e-resources. The assessment is made by using Bibliometric techniques in which articles production in scholarly journals at international level and their quality through citation analysis is also being measured.

COUNTER Codes and Practices of Vendors: What They Say and What They Do Not Say

The present study was undertaken to probe the effectiveness of Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) reports with regard to usage of journals and to learn more about the practices adopted by different content providers in generating reports. Under Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice, we closely examined reports from eighteen content providers having accounts with the University of Kashmir library. The University of Kashmir has subscription access to content from nineteen different providers through the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium of India, eighteen of which are COUNTER-compliant. We were thus able to make observations on the practices of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, Annual Reviews, Cambridge University Press, Emerald, the Institute of Physics, JSTOR, Nature, Oxford University Press, Portland Press, Project Euclid, Project Muse, the Royal Society of Chemistry, Science Direct, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley. We discuss a number of patterns among the provider set that yield ambiguous or incomplete indications of journal usage. We offer to the library community and standard-making bodies a set of recommendations to seek better practices: (1) Providers should archive and make available a minimum of three years of historical usage data in addition to the current/most recent year; (2) Counts for titles that have undergone a title change should appear under the previous name for the applicable year rather than be subsumed in the count for the current form of title; (3) Usage reports for retrospective years should be limited to the title set that was available in the applicable year; (4) Usage reports should be limited to titles on subscription with the client institution; (5) The PR1 (Platform Report 1) should be required to enable librarians to acquire useful platform-specific information, such as popularity and usability of the platform; (6) Required output formats should include both the Tab Separated Values (TSV) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) formats (and we acknowledge that these formats are now required under COUNTER Release 4); and (7) Content providers should exercise great care in communications regarding platform changes to ensure that librarians can discern usage from each platform and combine usage numbers from each when not duplicated.

Reflection of the Information Literacy Literature: A Webometric Study

Webometrics is the research network-based communication using informetric or other quantitative measures. The primary objective of this study is to examine the nature and pattern of citations in the recent information literacy literature. For the study, 84 articles published in 29 e-journals of LIS collection of Emerald Group available through UGC-Infonet digital library consortium of the last five years have been analyzed. This study concentrates on classification of web citations by author, year, country, and pattern of citations has also been calculated. The study reveals that current trend in citing is moving towards web citations.

Use of UGC-Infonet E-resources by Social Science Academics in Indian Universities: An Evaluation Study

UGC is providing access to scholarly electronic resources (e-resources) to Indian universities through the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium. Access to subscribed e-resources is being provided free of cost to member universities. The whole program is funded by the UGC and executed by the INFLIBNET Centre. Now, the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium is in its 11th year and it has been expected that privileged academicians are utilizing available e-resources extensively and optimally. In this paper an effort is being made to assess, how social science faculty working in Indian universities have been using e-resources, what are the problems they are facing in accessing them, and what are the efforts made by INFLIBNET to spread awareness about such an ambitious initiative of UGC among social science faculty members. This paper also highlights some important issues with respect to use, acceptance and planning of this consortium.

Awareness and Use of UGC Infonet Digital Library Consortium by the Scholars in University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India

The present study reports on a survey of scholars who use UGC INFONET Digital Library Consortium for accessing the e-journals and there by making awareness. It explores how and why they use it. An attempt has been done to determine the problems faced by scholars to use UGC INFONET Consortium. A questionnaire was administered among 100 scholars randomly but the response rate was of 90 percent. Present study also discusses library consortia and its features. The study has enabled the respondents to express their satisfaction level and their aspiration for further improvements in the service. The research focuses on the scholars of University of Lucknow only.

Implementation and Utilisation of N-LIST Programme through UGC – INFONET Digital Library Consortium in Gokhale Centenary College Users: An overview

PurposeThis paper deals with the utilisation of N-LIST digital library programme by the faculty members and students of Gokhale Centenary College, Ankola.Design/Methodology/ApproachThe questionnaire method has been adopted to elicit the opinion of users about the utilisation level of N-LIST programme through UGC-INFONET digital library consortium in Gokhale Centenary College. Sample was drawn from 380 users out of which 317 filled in responses were received, representing 83.42% of respondents. The stratified random sampling technique was used for selecting the sample users.FindingThe result shows large percent of users preferred electronic journals when compared to print version of primary journals at Gokhale Centenary College, Ankola. E-Resources were mostly used to upgrade their knowledge and announce their career development, assignments, conference and seminars. It is necessary to update E-Resources and also essential to maintain digital library, sufficient systems, internet speed, CD writing and printing of essential information, because the library plays an important role in extending efficient library services.Research Limitations/ImplicationsScope of the present study is limited to students, and faculty members of Gokhale Centenary College, Ankola, Dadabhai Naoroji library and information centre, who are the bonafide users of the Gokhale Centenary College, Ankola. The papers provide valuable solutions and suggestions for users and library staff.Practical ImplicationsThe study will be useful for library staff and management.Originality/ValueThe study provides original data from Gokhale Centenary College, Ankola, E-Resources users.

Designing and developing biophysics library websites: A practical approach using web 2.0 service

In this paper the authors have tried to document the process of designing a library website using web 2.0 services. For this, Weebly has been selected using which the authors have developed the website of Department of Biophysics of Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. Weebly is a web based solutions to create websites. It provides free as well as paid account/options for creating websites. The library website developed by using the free account aims to provides single window access to e-resources subscribed by Biophysics department along with easy access to UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium e-resources in the subject Biophysics. It also provides information about library collections and services, library rules, etc. Users can also make use of inbuilt Books Recommendation Form, library Feedback Form, No Dues Form. The authors have also attempted to consolidate additional scholarly open access e-resources in the field of Biophysics. The website can be accessed from http://bphlibrary.weebly.com/.

Library consortia in India with special reference to UGC-Infonet digital library consortium

Including scholarly contents has given right to the publishers of peer-reviewed journals to keep higher subscription rates. It always affects library budget to a great extent. Since long libraries have been experimenting different ways of library cooperation so that maximum benefit, especially economic benefit, could be extracted from their joint cooperation ventures. The term ‘consortia’ has been considered an advanced stage of library cooperation. Advent of electronic journals has given rise to homogonous libraries and national governments to cope with scarcity of funds and unavailability of internationally produced scholarly literature by means of establishing library consortia. Various library consortia have been mushroomed all across the world and India has also not been spared from it. University Grants Commission (UGC) observed the dire state of Indian university libraries and found that only few were subscribing to some International peer-reviewed journals and many were not even subscribing to any international journal. The UGC opted electronic journals as medium and initiated a national consortium for strengthening library collection by providing thousands of international peer-reviewed journals over Internet free of cost. The consortium is known as UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium. In this paper an effort is being made to discuss the various concepts of library consortia in India briefly and UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium in detail.

Library consortia in India with special reference to UGC-Infonet digital library consortium

Including scholarly contents has given right to the publishers of peer-reviewed journals to keep higher subscription rates. It always affects library budget to a great extent. Since long libraries have been experimenting different ways of library cooperation so that maximum benefit, especially economic benefit, could be extracted from their joint cooperation ventures. The term ‘consortia’ has been considered an advanced stage of library cooperation. Advent of electronic journals has given rise to homogonous libraries and national governments to cope with scarcity of funds and unavailability of internationally produced scholarly literature by means of establishing library consortia. Various library consortia have been mushroomed all across the world and India has also not been spared from it. University Grants Commission (UGC) observed the dire state of Indian university libraries and found that only few were subscribing to some International peer-reviewed journals and many were not even subscribing to any international journal. The UGC opted electronic journals as medium and initiated a national consortium for strengthening library collection by providing thousands of international peer-reviewed journals over Internet free of cost. The consortium is known as UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium. In this paper an effort is being made to discuss the various concepts of library consortia in India briefly and UGC-Infonet Digital Library consortium in detail.

Studies on Ict and Internet Awareness and Access to E-Resources Under UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium: A Survey of Assam University Library Users

The paper, a survey of users, presents views on the extent of ICT/Internet awareness and status on use of e-resources by the Assam University Library users. The survey comprises of administration of questionnaire, observation of the participants, and interview of some of the participants for knowing the opinion of the respondents in respect of usage of Internet for their day-to-day activities and status of access to e-journals for their academic and research activities. The self designed questionnaire distributed on random sampling method to users comprising of faculty, research scholars, UG/PG Students and other staff. The data is analyzed using SPSS Software. The period of survey was July to August 2008 covering the users of Assam University Library using the Internet for accessing to the e-resources under the UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium. The findings may be considered as preliminary findings from a pilot study. The paper highlights the findings in respect of Internet Awareness, its use pattern and attitude of library users towards the electronic resources, in this context.

Awareness and Usage of UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium among Faculty Members of State Universities in Tamil Nadu: A Survey

The increasing price of electronic journals, indexing and abstracting databases along with the traditional pub- lished print subscriptions has forced library community to explore alternative means of subscription. The emergence of library a very promising development in this direction. The Phenomenon of consortia or group of libraries maintaining in- formation resources together has become very common these days, In India, during last few years we witnessed many con- sortia based subscription. When library consortiums are formed, the existing environment about users' preferences and dif- ficulties need to be studied. Initiating such studies would enable to incorporate the findings as the major input in consortium formation. A questionnaire based survey found that 94.40% of the science faculty members were aware about the UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium whereas only 86.99% of social science faculty members were aware about the availability of UGC-Infonet Digital Library Consortium. The study reveals that most of the respondents 75.35 % use the UGC-Infonet resources for the purpose of research work.