E-JOURNAL CONSORTIA AND KNOWLEDGE DELIVERY: A CASE OF Ch. CHARAN SINGH UNIVERSITY, MEERUT

1. E-JOURNAL CONSORTIA AND KNOWLEDGE DELIVERY: A CASE OF Ch. CHARAN SINGH UNIVERSITY, MEERUT Dr. (Ms) Shiva Kanaujia Sukula Astt. Librarian Central Library, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut

2. Abstract: • E-journal consortia function as a critical information service platform for higher education centres in this age of shrinking budgets and soaring journal prices. The literature reflects the need and provision of consortia-based information services that can cater to vast number of users with limited resources. This study pertains to Ch. Charan Singh University campus, Meerut (India) and various aspects such as need; reasons, benefits and quality assessment of e-journal consortia and knowledge delivery are discussed. The article gives a picture of the e-journal consortia of Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut (India) and further steps to be taken for enhanced services.

3. Introduction • Limitations of University • Population explosion, knowledge explosion, document explosion, • Need of Consortium: limitations in finance and diversity in users’ needs • UGC-INFONET Program, ERNET : E-journals demand electronic environment in the university such as network (intranet) to spread the facility all over the university

4. Efforts of UGC in knowledge delivery • Demand for the journals: globalization of education and competitive research • UGC: the Internet to cover the gap between the demand and supply of journals • UGC-InfoNet: member universities: quality information: affordable price

5. E-Journal Consortium And Knowledge Delivery: Purpose In Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut • Experiment with innovative information services; • Fast research concepts and procedures will move forward; • University library will be able to design and plan more effective networked environments; • University will share information and insights on how e-journals can be utilized more effectively.

6. List Of Publications Subscribed Under Ugc-Infonet E-Journals Consortia In Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut

8. Open Access Journals

9. Coverage of subjects • Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical and Chemical Sciences, Life Sciences, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics • Access: to current and archival literature

10. Knowledge Delivery through E-journal consortium • World Wide Web allows informal distribution of information • Discipline-based consortia (dedicated to research fields or specific concepts) are becoming essential platforms for scholars • Resources for pre-print and peer-reviewed articles, primary research, and an interactive exchange of ideas and even information materials

11. Need of consortia in Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut • Integrated access to the organized and indexed digital collections • Digital collections integrated with traditional library collections • Assurance of continued availability of information resources: round-the-clock instant access • Access to users beyond the physical space and time limits of the library. • Opportunity to minimize the local costs of content management, thereby reducing the need for physical content handling.

12. Infrastructure for Knowledge Delivery • Campus wide network and ensures uniform access all over the campus. • Open to all students at the university. • Works on lines similar to the terminal rooms in traditional computer centers. • 30 departments are being served. • Around 500 of computers to serve networked information services. • The University is planning to increase the number of computers in order to facilitate more users. • Library is able to pool the print and electronic resources and has infrastructure to share more information effectively using the Internet and the web technology.

13. Impact Of The Consortium On Academic Community • strategies for the electronic information services are based on the practices in the print environment • consortia-based information environment, savings: storage, access, and circulation • focus on increasing support for fair use in the electronically empowered consortia-based environment, • To explore cooperative content agreements with information providers that maximize economies of scale, • To keep public information in the public domain, to invest in local campus networks, and to encourage a competitive market in scholarly information content. • Electronic access far outstrips the traditional journals system for providing access, especially among research scholars

14. Benefits to the academic community: • Print journals are replaced by e-journal. • Though the journal is in electronic form, yet individual articles can be ordered in print form • E-journal is "secondary to" the print journal • Electronic version is published several months after the print version

15. Qualitative Assessment Of Knowledge delivery • choosing print or electronic information, user preference, user satisfaction, and ease of administration • consortia as a means to derive the best possible purchase bargain with collective buying power, which is true, but is not an end in itself • the university is conducting focus group sessions structured around following areas: • How academic community identifies, obtain, and use information for research and teaching activities. • The ways academic community would ideally like to get information; they need and why.

16. Impact on librarians: • Saving time and moneyConsortium significantly reduces the number of difficult, time-consuming tasks faced by university. • Helping librarians to help the academic communitythe library and information professionals face pressures from researchers who expect information to be easily and freely available on the web.

17. Some Measures for Better Knowledge Delivery: • Complete and Consistent Content • Open Linking • Non-English Content

18. Conclusion: We are living in very turbulent times where things change rapidly in our nearest environment. The commercial publishers and intermediaries offer already today their own integrated electronic libraries. If library does not make significant progress towards making instant access for the users to a significant amount of electronic information resources, there is a risk that academic institutions decision makers and key users will shop elsewhere for satisfaction of their information needs. The most important things here are making funds available for this development by reducing the library "paper work" and adjusting staff numbers involved in those processes. Universities must change their primary operations drastically in the coming years. Conventional educational strategies are way too expensive to meet the demands for further education and lifelong learning in our societies. Libraries cannot avoid changing their operations drastically as well - if they want to survive.

19. Thanks