Professional Literature for Indian Universities - A new Initiative by the University Grants Commission

Abstract

For some years now, Indian Universities and Colleges have been deprived of access to journals and other professional literature. About two decades ago, University libraries were able to subscribe to a decent number of journals in various subjects. The subscriptions have steadily eroded since funds available to universities have not been able to cover the rising cost of the literature, and today access to journals is all but impossible, except from a handful of major university libraries. It is clear that this trend cannot be reversed in the conventional fashion by providing increased funding. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently undertaken a major new initiative called the UGC-INFONET, which seeks to provide high speed internet connections, electronic access to professional literature, and the development of multimedia content to supplement conventional learning and teaching. In the present paper we describe the part of this project which deals with the provision of electronic access to journals and other literature for the University sector. Major organizations like the CSIR, DAE, AICTE etc have set up consortia involving institutes under the aegis of the respective department to have electronic access. The arrangement here involves incremental payments to be made to publishers to supplement an already large print subscription base. This arrangement is not possible for the Universities, since the present subscription base is very poor, and therefore arrangements which involve electronic subscriptions only are being made with publishers. In our paper we will discuss details about the initiative, the novel aspects of the programme, the great benefits that it will bring to the University sector, its present and future relationship with other consortia, and the role of INFLIBNET in the planning and long term implementation of the scheme.