Library consortia for Academic Libraries in the E-Publishing Era

Abstract

Academic libraries in India have been affected by an uncertain financial environment in which resource buying has been restricted, causing them to look at ways of extending their purchasing capabilities to compensate for reduced budgets. Technological developments, electronic publishing of scholarly journals, emerging of consortia, prizing models of the publishers gives new opportunities for libraries to provide instant access to information. Library consortium is the one of the emerging tool kit for libraries to survive in the e-publishing environment. An attempt has been made to identify the objectives, types, major issues and approach for co nsortia in Indian environment. The paper also highlights some of the important consortia arrangements at International level. The proposed models for academic libraries through different vendors / publisher has been discussed at the end.