Usage of Library UGC Infonet e-Consortium Resources by the ...

Tawfeeq Nazir* and Zahid Ashraf Wani**

Received on: 26.12.14; Revised on: 18.04.15; Accepted on: 12.06.15

ABSTRACT

ISSN 2229-5984 (P)2249-5576 (e)

Usage of Library UGC Infonet e-Consortium Resources by the University of Kashmir: A Pragmatic Approach

*Resesrch Scholar **Assistant Professor

Department of Library & Information Science

University of Kashmir, Srinagar

Corresponding AuthorTawfeeq Nazir

[email protected]

To Cite: Nazir, T & Wani, Z.A. (2015). Usage of library UGC Infonet e-consortium resources by the University of Kashmir: A pragmatic approach. International Journal of Information Dissemination and Technology, 5(2), 131-136.

Academic libraries in India are facing problems due to high expectations from its users, budget limits, high costs of library materials especially electronic journals and other information resources. It is impossible for individual library to provide access to all related information to meet their users' needs. Library consortiums have been initiated in India in order to overcome these problems, and efforts to form library consortia are still in their infancy. E-resources provided by UGC-Infonet library consortium to Indian Universities have proved boon to higher education in India. This paper envisages and analyzes the usage of e-resources available in UGC-Infonet consortia.

KeyTerms: e-Resources, UGC-Infonet, Consortia, Databases, Kashmir University, Digital Libraries.

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INTRODUCTION

Technology is a motivating force in the contemporary education

system. Accurate and reliable communication is a pre-requisite

to effective and efficient use of electronic resources available free

in the web space or for a fee. Digital communication and

networking technologies are key drivers of economic growth and

social well-being in the 21st century. The library consortia

provide an effective information infrastructure to the member

libraries of the consortia. The consortia approach to electronic

journal access plays an important role in facilitating access to

electronic journals through co-operative purchase options,

advantages includes minimizing acquisition cost of international 1scientific periodicals, consequently increasing user satisfaction .

In India UGC-Infonet, INDEST, and CSIR are some of the major

well known library consortium.

UGC-Infonet e-journal consortium is an ambitious project

launched by UGC in collaboration with INFLIBNET which

facilitates access to large number of e-journals to academic

community in India. There are two aspects, one deal with the

network connectivity to universities, which is known as UGC-

Infonet and other addresses the issues, related to e-journals. This

is the largest consortium with a vision and plans to reach out more

than 170+ universities and several thousand colleges affiliated to 2these universities, over a period of time . Under this initiative,

UGC is modernizing the universities with state of the art

Campuses Wide Networks and has set up its own nation-wide

communication network named UGC-Infonet. This paper makes

an attempt to envisage and analyzes the usage of e-resources

available in UGC-Infonet consortium by information seekers of

University of Kashmir.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Presently most of the libraries are using many useful IT tools/

databases. The users can get better services from these

technological peripherals. Libraries migrated from print to

electronic resources. The social or political conflict has always

proved to be an impediment to the developmental processes of

any region, state or country in the world.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Various studies have been undertaken to find the use of e-

resources all over the world. Sanville finds that 85% of usage

came from 40% of the titles available online via Ohio Link and

International Journal of Information Dissemination and Technology | April-June 2015 | Vol. 5 | Issue 2

132

52% of usage was from titles not previously held on subscription 3at the user's campus . Kumbar et al. determine that the majority of

the respondents (90%) opined that American Chemical Society

was most essential full-text electronic journal while 62.5% of

respondents were of the opinion that Academic Press and 4Springer were essential publisher databases . Bhatt found that J-

Gate was the most preferred portal used and rated by both faculty

members and research scholars. He also revealed that e-journals

and online databases were the most common e-resources

consulted by the History department (67.70%) and the Political 5Science department (67.30%) .

Walmiki, Ramakrishneogowda & Prithviraj found in their survey

that 39.79% of the faculty members are aware and use the UGC-

Infonet consortium e-resources whereas 35.99% are aware but

do not use and 24.22% are not at all aware of the availability of 6the consortium resources . Raghuram & Vatnal learnt that Kluwer

Online and J-Stor were the leading publishers for searching the 7journals followed by Springer, Emerald, Project muse and ERIC .

Tyagi observed that the online journals preferred by faculty

members were Science Direct (83.78%), IEEE/IEE IEL online

(78.38%), Springer (70.27%), and INSIGHT (62.16%). He also

observed that Research Scholars used Science Direct (68.25%),

IEEE/IEE IEL online (49.21%), Springer (46.03%), and Insight

(36.51%) whereas post graduate and under graduate students

preferred Science Direct (38.03%, 9.82%) and IEEE/IEE IEL online 8(29.58%, 8.04%) .

Dhanavandan, Esmail & Nagarajan investigated the use of e-

resources at Krishnasamy College of Engineering & Technology

Library and revealed that (82.2%) felt that they considered

themselves as "fully aware" and another (13.6%) "Somewhat

aware" of e-resources in the library and (5.5%) of users are not

familiar with the e-resources available in the library. They also

found (41.5%) respondents use e-resources for study, (9.8%) of

the respondents for research and (20.4%) of users for updating 9knowledge .

Habiba & Chowdhury observed that 54% users mostly used

electronic resources for learning, 35% used e-resources for

current information, 6% used electronic resources for research 10purpose and 5% used electronic resources for teaching purpose .

Patra et al. explored that the pattern of use of various databases

available at BBCL under the UGC-Infonet programme was very

interesting. JSTOR was ranked first in the list with 51.3% users, the

second most used database is Project Muse used by 26.96% of the

respondents. The third most used database was Kluwer and 11Springer Links (26.09%) . Velmurugan found that almost 66

respondents (62.8%) are aware of online resources but whereas 12only 39 respondents (37.2%) are not aware of them . Ram & Karn

shows that the awareness of online journal is good but awareness

about consortia and UGC-Infonet consortia is poor as well as use 13is also very less among the users .

OBJECTIVES

§ To know the available e-resources provided by UGC-Infonet

digital library e-resource consortium

§ To know the usage of UGC-Infonet e-resource year wise

§ To know the publisher wise usage of e-resources

§ To suggest the effective use of the UGC-Infonet e-resources.

METHODOLOGY

UGC-Infonet is the main provider of e-resources to all UGC

affiliated universities of India. The University of Kashmir have a

central library besides many departments have equipped with

computer labs, where from users access the e-resources provided

by UGC-Infonet. The study based on UGC-Infonet e-RAMS 14Statistics from 2007 to 2012 of University of Kashmir .

DATA ANALYSIS

Analyzed data was classified into different sections and

interpretation is supported by tables and charts wherever

necessary. Use of full text databases e-resources provided by

UGC-Infonet by users of University of Kashmir from year 2007-

2012.

q American Chemical Society

While analyzing the data, it was observed that the usage of ACS

database considerably increased during the course of years.

American Chemical Society publications are very much useful in

the area of Chemistry, Environmental Science, Geology, and

other applied departments. Although ACS publishes several

journals but UGC-Infonet provides access to 37 peer reviewed

full text e-journals. ACS publication Journals has sharp increase

in usage in the year 2010 as compare to 2009.

Fig. 1: American Chemical Society

q American Institute of Physics

The analysis of data reveals that the usage is high 39% (714

articles) in the year 2007 followed by 28% (510 articles) in year

2012 and it declines (326 articles) in year 2008 and sharply

declines (54 articles) in year 2009 and from year 2010 it slowly

increases.

Fig. 2: American Institute of Physics


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q Annual Reviews

While analyzing data it emerged that the usage of Annual

Reviews databases is high in the year 2009 (2137) followed by the

year 2012 (1531) and usage remains low (i.e. below 400

articles/year) in all other years.

Fig. 3: Annual Reviews

q Cambridge University Press

While analyzing data it was found that in the year 2011 CUP

resource was highly used (2083 article) as compare to other years.

Fig. 4: Cambridge University Press

q Emerald Database

The data analysis revealed that the usage of the journal articles

sharply increases with the passing years. The reasons may be that

it includes reputed journals of most of subject areas with high

impact factor. It usage increases with the passing years due to its

awareness among users.

Fig. 5: Emerald Database

q Institute of Physics

The analyses of data revealed that there is considerably increase

in usage of IOP database. The reason may be that the users are

getting aware about this databases and the internet connectivity is

provided to almost every department lab by the university

authorities.

Fig. 6: Institute of Physics

q JSTOR

While analyzing the data, it was found that the usage was not

consistent, its usage decreases (2896 articles) in year 2009 and

then increases (7826 articles) in 2011

Fig. 7: JSTOR

q Nature

The data revealed that there was increase in usage with the

passage of time as year 2007 it was 189 articles and in year 2012 it

is 770 articles i.e. usage increase in 581 articles.

Fig. 8: Nature

q Oxford University Press

The Oxford University Publication Journals around 206 titles

were accessible. The data analyses reveal that there is sharp

increase in usage of journal articles. Figure 9 shows the usage of

OUP.


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Fig. 9: Oxford University Press

q Royal Society of Chemistry

Department researcher, academic members and students utilized

RSC. The ERAMS usage statistics shows from 2007 to 2009

average usage but in the year 2010 to 2012 usages was grown up.

Fig. 10: Royal Society of Chemistry

q Springer Link Publications

The Springer is one of the top publishers of science journals. In the

year 2011 highest 11870 articles were utilized.

Fig. 11: Springer Link Publications

q Taylor and Francis

Taylor and Francis publication journal titles are very useful to

Humanities department researchers. The use of database is

shown in figure 12.

Fig. 12: Taylor and Francis

q Wiley Blackwell Publishing

It is evident from the data that maximum utilization (68%) of

Wiley Blackwell database was in the year in the year 2011.

Fig 13 Wiley Blackwell Publishing

q Science Direct

The access of Science Direct to University of Kashmir provided by

UGC-Infonet starts from year 2011. The usage increases very

sharply from 37% in year in 2011 and it approximately becomes

doubled (63%) in the year 2012.

Fig. 14: Science Direct


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Comparative Usage of Different E-Resources

Data analysis revealed that Science Direct is utilized at maximum (31%) followed by JSTOR (20%), Spring Link (11%), Emerald (11%),

American Chemical Society (7%).

Fig. 15: Comparative Usage of Different e-Resources

FINDINGS

§ The usage of e-resources increases with the passing years.

§ The usages of databases cover science faculty is more than

social science or humanities.

§ Most of the e-resources subscribed by UGC-Infonet are from

western publishers.

CONCLUSION

UGC-Infonet consortia facility for Indian universities is emerging

as one of the best services so as to share the wide range of

information resources through single window. Most of the

universities in India are under the cover of the UGC-Infonet

consortium benefits their users by providing them vast range of e-

resources and avoids duplication of resources and efforts. The

researcher, Faculty and student community in India are getting

homogenous and expanded information resources under UGC-

Infonet consortium, which has emerged as a very cost effective

way to subscribe large number of databases at least cost. By the

advent of UGC-Infonet consortium, Users of Kashmir University

have accessed timely, remotely and expanded information that

boost their carrier, intellectual caliber and research aptitude. One

more important advantage users of Kashmir University gain by

UGC-Infonet consortium is that users access the resources from

their homes through proxy servers installed by university

libraries. There is need to aware users particularly from the social

science and humanities departments about the e-resources

subscribed by the UGC-Infonet so that they can reap maximum

benefits from the use of scholarly content. The university

authorities also provided more computer labs and internet

connectivity to every department in the university so that users

without any inconvenience to get access to e-resources.

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