Academic library consist of school libraries, college libraries and university libraries and there are various loophole in the uniform development of these libraries. The University Grant Commission (UGC) has provided guidelines for the development of university libraries. There are various network like INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network) an initiative of UGC that helps in the improvement of libraries.
Lack of uniform development
The academic libraries come under different types of management, government, private individuals, organizations and societies. These types of difference have their effect in the collection, resources and services and product provided by the libraries. The development of libraries as an individual unit without the cooperation and coordination with other libraries will generate such gap among libraries.
Digital information is becoming increasingly available
In the information age every human activity is influences by the information. or in other words, every activity we perform today need information in one or other way. With the digital world electronic publishing became more prominent, now the conversion rate of media in to electronic form is increased significantly. When the printing technology was invented and established he documents which are in hand-written and manuscripts form were converted into the printed form and today as there is need of electronic data most of the documents and information are in electronic form and provided to the end users in electronic or digital form itself.
There are several merits of using electronic format of the documents:
- It can be shared with the user with ease.
- It can be shared with many user simultaneously.
- The cost of publication is reduced.
- People can use the documents simultaneously from different geographical location,
- The information is provided with less cost as compared to the printed information.
- The information dissemination is highly transparent and flexible.
- The preservation of the content is easy than the efforts required to preserve the printed and other information.
There are many digital libraries which provide the information documents at minimum charges or free of cost, The Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org), Project Gutenberg digital library (www.gutenberg.org), The World Public Library (worldlibrary.org) etc. are some of the examples for the digital library.
The Open Access information movements results in the establishment of free journal repositories. The users can easily access the scholarly articles using simple and advance search features from this kind of free repositories. DOAJ (site: www.doaj.org). Thousands of free journals can be acquired using this portal for the free journal.
UGC INFONET
UGC INFONET project is a project implemented by the University Grant Commission (UGC). Through the University Grants Commission program to make available the scholarly articles to the academic libraries. According to this program UGC will subscribe all the important journals and provide it via INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network) in electronic format. These Journals are accessible to all Indian university and college libraries which are a part of the network. The UGC Infonet is replaced by another project called N-LIST(National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content).
N-LIST programme
The N-LIST project is jointly initiated by the UGC-INFONET, INDEST-AICTE Consortium, and IIT Delhi. This project provides the e-resources to the student, researchers and faculty of college and university libraries. The authorized users from colleges can now access e-resources and download articles required by them directly from the publisher's website once they are duly authenticated as authorized users through servers deployed at the INFLIBNET Centre.
National Digital Library of India
The National Digital Library aka Million Digital Book Program a digital library started by government of India with the aim of digitization of all the heritage collection present in Indian libraries. Now a days a library have to develop and imply ICT facilities to function successfully in modern times by providing access to digital and electronic resources. The collection in modern time is provided in digital form to the user using electronic medium.
The Internet: the largest information source
The internet is a network of networks which unite the whole world at a place and it is also considered as the largest source of information nowadays. The term internet is coined around 1984 and it only have few thousand connections ang among which mostly were government agencies. ARPANET, in full Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, experimental computer network that was the forerunner of the Internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an arm of the U.S. Defense Department, funded the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in the late 1960s. Its initial purpose was to link computers at Pentagon-funded research institutions over telephone lines. It was terminated in 1990. In 1991 www was launched and with it's inventory Internet became a public domain network. The Internet has become a ‘library within every library’ and without which no library can function.
Our libraries are still traditional. What are the options?
Even after so many revolutionary changes to make make our libraries suitable for the electronic era, our libraries are even today functioning in a conventional style giving more importance to printed books and journals, which now form only a fraction of the information sources. College and university libraries are needed to have adopt more recent and technological advanced method to cope up with need of our users. There is a call for change in the acquisition policy adopted by the user, the infrastructure of the libraries, providing more computers and reading materials, devices and new management devices, latest security Equipments and the training for the library staff. There is also a need for information literacy program at academic level and the libraries should provide information literacy program to the users. The concept of hybrid libraries ae also there where the print and electronic media will go hand in hand. As it is not possible for many libraries to deal with digital environment directly the concept of hybrid libraries will be of great importance for them. Instead of sticking on to the print media, we have to develop our college libraries to use print as well as the digital sources simultaneously. It may be necessary to provide a kind of combo facility for reading printed documents and electronic documents at one point. Now libraries require reading terminals instead of reading tables, which will be a combination of reading platforms with a computer connected to the network.
Library automation
Even today not even 50% of the libraries are automated in a systematic manner. The library automation using library automation software either the free open-source automation software of commercial library management software. Many libraries are using SOUL, library management software developed by the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET). Book Magic, Koha, Lybsis, PMB, Evergreen etc. software are other software used in college libraries. Free library management software called KOHA is available and many libraries including university libraries have switched over to KOHA as the software can be freely downloaded from the internet and perform all the library household activities like acquisition, circulation, serial management, book management, cataloguing etc.
Library network
As a very effective step of IT application in academic libraries, all the academic libraries should form a network along with the university libraries. In order to accomplish the task of bringing together all academic libraries in all the State into a network, an expert committee may be appointed. The University Libraries can act as nodal centres, providing information sources peculiar to each university, like digitized theses, instructions to affiliated colleges and students, examination guidelines, question banks and examination results. The Network architecture, communication link, bandwidth, etc., will be decided by experts. Shared use of information is possible only in a networked environment.
In the USA all types of libraries come under a gigantic network called Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) which link together more than 16,000 libraries of all kinds from 120 countries. Its online union catalogue is called World Cat and it contains over millions records in many languages (multilingual form). World Cat is, undoubtedly, the biggest bibliographic utility in the world. The participating libraries input records to the World Cat and at the present rate, one record is input every second. Interlibrary Lending, shared use of digital resources and technical services and advice are provided.
A new service, OCLC Classify, is providing a DDC number for any book acquired by any library in the world. Go to the OCLC website and just type the author and title of the book. You will get a DDC number for the book. If there is no author, simply type the title and one or two subject headings. OCLC is run by the annual subscriptions received from member libraries.
Another library network worth mentioning here is JANET (Joint Academic Libraries Network) This is a British venture and it links all the academic libraries of Britain.
In India also a library network has been set up in Delhi linking all libraries in the Delhi metropolitan area. This network is called the Development Libraries Network (DELNET). This network help in the networking of libraries . But there are libraries where no network exists even among various departments of Universities.
Considering the various advantages of networking, all the academic libraries should be brought under one network. The various benefits of the network are:
❖ Networking facilitates shared use of resources.
❖ Electronic information resources can be shared without physically sending the resources and it allows simultaneous use of the same document by several persons at different places;
❖ Costly reference books need not be purchased in all libraries, they can be shared from a central location.
❖ Intercommunication between libraries will be faster, easier and less costly.
❖ In a networked environment number of journals can be used at a lesser cost, especially when electronic journals and available;
❖ Digital repositories of research publications of college teachers can be set at a central location;
❖ An information portal can be created at a central place, which will link all relevant information sources, including the UGC Infonet.
❖ Expertise can be shared.
❖ Ultimately, networks provide easy access to more information to all users at less cost.
❖ Acquisition of resources may state what type of materials should be acquired; what should be the proportion between electronic and printed sources and what should be the procedure to be followed for acquiring library collections. When a uniform procedure is followed by all libraries, individual libraries can be freed from unnecessary administrative procedures.
❖ The guideline can clearly state the choice of Library Management Software and the classification and cataloguing systems to be followed.
❖ The hardware requirements such as computers, printers, servers and other accessories can be prescribed in the guideline depending upon the size of the library, particularly the size of the library collections.
❖ In every library collection, there exist very rare and out of print documents. Such documents can be digitized and preserved at a common location.
❖ The guideline can also state how the computerized catalogue of the library can be converted into an Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) so that the online catalogue of a library can be searched by all participating libraries and library users.
❖ If a library has its own digital resources, the guideline can give instructions on how such resources can be made available online.
❖ If e-journals are available, there should be restrictions on the subscription to print journals. The guidelines should prescribe the print periodicals to be subscribed by a library.
Training of library staff
To do the activities of library and to complete the work in a uniform manner, we have to train the library staff by conducting workshops, seminar and other training programmes. Fees can be levied from the trainees. Already there are a few experts who can download, install and run the Management software they can share their knowledge with other librarian and staff. Also, librarians may need training on network setup and maintenance.
Conclusion
Availability of a regional information network for library cooperation and resource sharing can improve academic and research output in India. The network initiative can enhance the confidence level among the library professionals and the academic community by pooling information resources scattered in various libraries in the state. Libraries can procure more e-resources in less price through purchase via the consortium.
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