Krishikosh: Digital Repository of National Agricultural Research and Education System (NARES): An Analytical Study

Abstract

As a result of the National Agricultural Innovation Programme (NAIP) framework, Krishikosh has emerged as a digital archive. Its main objective is to collect, digitise, and distribute online resources obtained from libraries of allied sciences and agriculture in India. The increasing demands of the scientific, academic, and research communities are directly addressed by this project. Krishikosh functions as a dynamic software platform that smoothly integrates with the open access paradigm in accordance with ICAR's Open Access Policy, much like a cloud service. It has developed into a required platform for holding a wide range of resources, including academic publications, historical texts, theses, journal articles, yearly reports, seminar proceedings, project results, newsletters, success stories, and the field of grey literature. The study reveals that the Krishikosh digital repository comprises 266,288 documents, encompassing theses, books, journals, project reports, and more related to agriculture and allied sciences. These documents were contributed by 106 libraries affiliated with SAU and ICAR institutes, with the top ten libraries contributing over half of the total documents. TANUVAS, Chennai, emerged as the primary contributor with 25,869 records (9.71%), followed by UAS, Bengaluru, with 22,272 records (8.36%). Theses and dissertations constituted the majority, totalling 193,089 records (77.79%), with UAS, Bengaluru, leading in this category with 14,326 records (7.40%). The repository's interface offers robust search options, facilitated by Agro tags for semantic searches, promoting efficient resource discovery. Administrative control lies with institutional stakeholders, enabling content management. This analytical study provides a comprehensive perspective on the repository's varied resources, offering multidimensional benefits for agricultural studies and research.