Introduction

1. National Indexing and Abstracting Services for Indian S&T Journals: A StudyByDhiman MondalM.Phil. StudentUniversity of CalcuttaDept. of Library & Information ScienceWest Bengal.E-mail: dhiman.bon@gmail.com

2. Introduction • In India, every year a huge amount of money has been spent for R&D infrastructure in S&T and as a result wide range of primary literatures are coming out from this discipline. • Researchers use journals to provide a forum for the scientific community to share their research findings, inventions and also to open new vistas for further research. • Today, in the age of information explosion, journal is increasing day by day and every year a vast amount of information is published in the journals by the researchers. • Due to the growth in size and complexity of recorded knowledge, a need has been felt to list the records of human communication systematically by means of producing subject bibliographies, indexing and abstracting tools etc.

3. Introduction • Indexing and abstracting work plays significant role in achieving bibliographical control over primary published literatures. • Indexing and abstracting journals mean by which the vast amount of scattered information contained in journals can be indexed and summarized for quick access to information. • The purpose of such a control over journal literature is that no journal title should be out of reach.

4. Indexing and Abstracting Services of Journals • Indexing and abstracting of journals is an access tool which lists the title of the journal articles with bibliographical details arranged systematically. • Indexing of journals compile titles of journals articles regularly and arranged it user friendly order so that users can locate the sources of the document easily and quickly. • Abstracting journals not only list the bibliographical details but also provide summary of the documents.

5. Indexing and Abstracting Services of Journals • In 1907, Chemical Abstracts was published as a first weekly indexing and abstracting journal for world’s chemistry related literature. Whereas, Indian Science Abstract (ISA) started publishing as first Indian S&T journals index in 1935. • In 1963, Eugene Garfield initiated the first machine generated multidisciplinary citation index called “Science Citation Index”. Whereas, Indian Citation Index (ICI) was developed by the Knowledge Foundation in 2010 for Indian research work published in local journals at national level.

6. Benefits of Indexing and Abstracting Services of Journals • It acts as an aid in the location and identification of documents. • It acts as an effective information retrieval tool for primary published literature. • It facilitates the broadest dissemination of information by pointing researchers to articles that are relevant to his need quickly. • Readers can get idea about current published articles scattered in several journals by consulting a single source in a quickly retrievable form.

7. Benefits of Indexing and Abstracting Services of Journals • It helps the reader to decide what to read and what not to read without consulting the original documents. Though it is not substitutes for the original documents. • It keeps researchers and scholars abreast of current literature in their fields of interest. • It saves time and energy of the information seekers. • It facilitates wider visibility of the journal article and thereby helps to improve the Impact Factor of the journals.

8. Indian Science Abstracts (ISA): Indian Science Abstracts (ISA) is a semi-monthly abstracting journal which has been reporting scientific work done in India since 1965. It was published by INSDOC (now NISCAIR). It is a leading abstracting journal in India covering entire spectrum of science and technology. Moreover, Indian Science Abstracts (ISA) database is now available online freely from 2000 onwards at NISCAIR's ISA website with different search options. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Abstracts (MAPA): MAPA is a bimonthly abstracting journal published by NISCAIR, New Delhi. It covers world literature on all aspects of medicinal, aromatic and allied plants. National Indexing and Abstracting Services for Indian S&T Journals

9. National Indexing and Abstracting Services for Indian S&T Journals • Indian Agricultural Sciences Abstracts (IASA): The IASA is a bi-annual abstracting journal which has been published by Directorate of Information and Publications of Agriculture, ICAR, New Delhi since 2002. It provides indexing and abstracting services of Indian agricultural journals. • Indian Animal Sciences Abstracts (IASA): The IASA is a bi-annual abstracting journal. It has been published by Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture, ICAR, New Delhi since 2002. It indexes and abstracts covering Indian literature on all aspects of animal Science, animal husbandry and veterinary science.

10. National Indexing and Abstracting Services for Indian S&T Journals • Indian Fisheries Abstracts (IFA): The IFA is a bi-annual abstracting journal which is published by Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), Kolkata since 1967. It provides indexing and abstracting service covering Indian literature on management, and conservation of marine, brackish water, freshwater resources and environments and fisheries. • Paryavaran Abstracts (PA): Paryavaran abstract is a quarterly publication of Environmental Information System, Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi. It indexes and abstracts of Indian current literature on all aspects of environment sciences.

11. National Indexing and Abstracting Services for Indian S&T Journals • Indian Citation Index (ICI): ICI is a citation database maintained by the Knowledge Foundation (a registered society) with the required support of M/s Divan Enterprise since its starting from 2010. It enlists major Indian journals on multidisciplinary information/ knowledge. Now-a-days, it becomes one of the most important databases for literature search published in Indian journals. • Open J-Gate: Open J-Gate is a database of global journal literature in open access domain. Launched in 2006, Open J-Gate is the contribution of Informatics (India) Ltd to promote Open Access Initiative.

12. National Indexing and Abstracting Services for Indian S&T Journals • IndMed: From 1986 to 31st March 2009, National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had collaborated to setup ICMR-NIC Centre for Biomedical Information. They develop IndMed bibliographic database for Indian Biomedical Literature.

13. National Indexing and Abstracting Tools for Indian S&T journals

14. National Indexing and Abstracting Tools for Indian S&T journals

15. Concluding Remarks • Govt. agencies i.e., NISCAIR, ICAR, ICMR and private organization plays a major role in organizing journal literature through indexing and abstracting services. But many journals still are not indexed/ abstracted by this tool. • Government should allocate more funds for govt. and private agencies to encourage these documentation activities. • Today in the ICT era, there is a need to convert the printed I&A tools into databases with different search options. It will facilitate searcher to trace the required documents on online easily and it also provide online archive of bibliographic data of back dated issues.

16. Concluding Remarks • Shifting from the printed form of scholarly communication to machine generated databases will be a significant move. • Every journal should be indexed/ abstracted in more than one national as well as international indexing and abstracting services. It can help to increase the content visibility of journals and thereby help to increase the impact factor. • On the other hand, publishing a research paper in a journal which is not indexed or abstracted means maximum reader will not be aware about its existence and it is as good as not published. • So, it is important to promote the importance and benefits of indexing and abstracting tools among researchers and as well as publishers.

17. Thank You