Library networks and development of consortia

access most advanced media including CD-ROM, the Internet and other electronic formats of information resources. Today libraries are witnessing the network based era having connected to vast ocean of the Internet based information. The use of ICTs have placed the Indian academic libraries at par with the libraries the world over.

The Information for Library Network (INFLIBNET) set up by the UGC as an autonomous interuniversity centre in 1991 proved to be a landmark to interlink the academic libraries.

 It is involved in modernizing university libraries in India and connects these to a nation-wide-high speed data network.

 

The INFLIBNET promotes 

automation of libraries, 

develop standards; 

creates union catalogues of serials, theses, books, monographs and non-book materials; 

provide access to bibliographic information resources; 

creates database of projects, institutions, specialists; 

organizes training programmes, etc.

    The INFLIBNET  also developed ‘Software for University Libraries’, a library automation software more popularly called as SOUL.

    Other national networks and library networks have developed in addition to INFLIBNET.

Notable networks include INDONET, ERNET, CALIBNET, DELNET, MALIBNET, and the National Informatic Centre's Network (NICNET). These networks increased resource sharing and expanded the user base's information access.

    The consortia are usually intended to meet the information needs of stakeholders in a homogenous group. The consortium approach began in India in 1982 with emergence of the Forum for Resource Sharing in Astronomy and Astrophysics (FORSA). This was initiated for sharing resources available in astronomy libraries in the nation and was extended to physics and mathematics libraries in 2004.

    FORSA's objectives and activities: The Indian Digital Library in Engineering Science and Technology (INDEST) was established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India to give all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and other institutions, such as NITs, ISM, IIMs, NITTTRs, etc. access to electronic resources.
Indian Digital Library in Engineering Science and Technology (INDEST) headquarter is at IIT Delhi.

The National Knowledge Resource Consortium : (NKRC) was established in 2009. It is a network of libraries and information centres of 39 National Laboratories and institutes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and 24 institutes of the Department of Science and Technology.

The Health Science Library and Information Network: (HELINET) was launched during March 2003 with an aim to improve the "quality of education and research in institutions of health sciences" in Karnataka through enhanced "access to high quality medical information". The consortium facilitates access from leading publishers to 600 scholarly, international biomedical journals to members/institutions. 

Agricultural universities, veterinary universities, and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutions have access to more than 3000 journals in the broad spectrum of agricultural sciences through the Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA). 

The UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium was launched by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam at Vidya Bhawan on 28th December 2003 on the concluding day of Golden Jublee celebrations of the UGC.

The consortium facilitates current as well as archival access to more than 7,500 core and peer-reviewed electronic journals and 10 bibliographic databases from world famous publishers, scholarly societies and aggregators.
In the first phase, access to e-resources was offered to 50 universities having the Internet connectivity under the UGC-INFONET networking program. Thereafter, the consortium access was extended to 209 universities under the purview of UGC. The consortium provides access to e-resources in almost all disciplines including arts, humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, chemical sciences, life sciences, computer sciences, management, mathematics and statistics.