Web Resource Service: Usage of Open Access Journals by the Academicians of Autonomous Colleges in Dakshina Kannada-A Survey

Abstract

In the digital environment the academicians’ interest are moving towards accessing and using Electronic journals for their day to day academic activities. These are one of the main means used by researchers for scholarly communication. They play an important role in the creation and communication of knowledge. There are thousands of open access titles available. The promising open access movement is opening alternate channels for the distribution of scholarly work. As the availability of open access journals increasing, accessing to these journals is also increasing gradually. No doubt the digital information is becoming popular among users in almost all the libraries. Considering the importance of open access journals the research study has been undertaken to provide awareness to the faculty members of five Autonomous Colleges in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. The study result would provide library professionals and academicians with clear insights into the benefits of using open access journals. The study result reveals that the majority respondents are unaware of open access journals and among those who uses electronic journals majority of them are using open access journals for their academic purposes. Through this study the researcher provided awareness to the to the faculty members regarding various open access initiatives available in India and abroad.