Library Consortia Model for Country Wide Access of Electronic Journals and Databases

Abstract

The present approach towards partnership, networking, consortia and resource sharing adopted by Indian libraries need radical changes to evolve responsive partnerships in order to achieve best performance in service. The current practices of journal acquisition in most of the libraries in the colleges and universities in India are print based, in which each library is an island with regard to access of information. Moreover, there is wide disparity in the availability and use of information among different universities and colleges. But, consortia based acquisition and electronic desktop delivery of information can eliminate this gulf and increase the access and use considerably. Thus the difficulty now faced by the students, teachers and scientists in getting academic and research information will be eliminated on achieving full bibliographical control on the information documents available world over. This paper depicts the benefits of library consortia, analyses the present trend in the formation of consortia in India and suggests a new model of library consortia in which all academic institutions and government research organizations could participate. The formation of such a unique consortium under the direction and full support by the Government of India is stressed. The role that can be played by the INFLIBNET Centre of the University Grants Commission in the formation and management of such a consortium is also depicted. The areas of re-defining and re-engineering the operations of the university libraries necessitated by the consortia based electronic information and document delivery services are also discussed.