Bhatt, R K; Madhusudhan, M(INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad, February NaN, 2004)
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Abstract:
Higher education for the development of society is imperative because it not only emphasize
on the need of creating the enlightened citizenry for the country but also establishes itself
as a potential instrument of social and national reconstruction. Libraries function as an
essential integral component in higher education system. Without a proper information
and knowledge infrastructure, no education system can sustain and achieve its laid down
goals and objectives. But in the past one-decade, due to paucity of funds, libraries are
passing through a phase of deterioration, particularly in terms of its collection and services.
Lot of efforts have been taken in past to over come the problem of financial crunch such as
resource sharing, library networking etc. Advent of information and communication
technologies and their capabilities such as high-resolution capture devices, dramatic
increase of digital storage media, explosive growth of Internet and WWW, sophisticated
search engines, fast-processing power and reducing cost of computers, high bandwidth
networks and increasing number of electronic publications have made possible to switch
over to technological solutions to the problems of present day university libraries which can
not be won otherwise by the traditional system of librarianship. The present paper defines
the term e-journals, illustrates the advantages of e-journals in the light of the financial
problems, issues and implications, some acquisition considerations of e-journals and
highlights the benefits of consortia based subscription of electronic resources.