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
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
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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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