An Analytical Study of Ebsco Online Journal Databases: With Special Reference to I.G.M. Library, University of Hyderabad

Abstract

The paper describes the importance of journal as an important medium of communicating recent developments in scientific research and the dependence of academic community of any University for their research work. It also presents the latest trend of journal publishing in electronic medium. Since, Indira Gandhi Memorial Library is the first University Library to introduce one of the major online medium to their academic community by subscribing EBSCO Online Journals Database, an analytical study of the usage statistics was undertaken in terms of number of sessions ,searches, abstracts and full text articles in order to measure deficiencies in the system. The data indicates that the usage is found extensive during initial years than the subsequent years. Abstracts and full text articles are more extensively referred Linking activity is also found to be constantly increased.. It is observed that the user’s unawareness regarding these developments is primarily affecting the usage of this new medium, whereas audit, renewal procedures, networking problems, etc. are added to the decline of the usage of e-journals. The paper suggests that a lot of orientation and publicity is still required to the academic community to increase the level of usage of such databases.