Library Consortia
The basic principle of consortia is that its
members can cooperatively achieve more than what they can achieve as individual
institutions.
a)
Definition: According to American Heritage Dictionary a
consortium is “a cooperative arrangement among groups or institution,” or “an
association or society”. According to Oxford English Dictionary, “Consortium
means temporary cooperation of a number of powers, companies, etc. for a common
purpose. It is an association of similar type of organization / institution who
are engaged for producing and servicing the common things / for providing
services for a specific purpose of its users.”
Library consortium is a
“community of two or more information agencies which have formally agreed to
coordinate, cooperate or consolidate certain function” to achieve mutual
objectives. It is an association of a group of libraries to achieve mutually
the joint benefits. It provides a way for its members to conduct business in a
comparative manner.
b)
Prerequisite for Consortia: Technological developments,
electronic publishing of scholarly journals, emergence of consortia, pricing
models of publishers are some of the factors that create the condition for the
development of the library consortia.
i) Emergence of
Electronic Document: The whole world is moving towards electronic publishing
and the cost of the electronic publishing is much less than that of the print
version. The users also hope to have access to their learned journals article
in electronic form.
ii) Access to
Electronic Resources is a Precondition for a Modern Library: Library materials
have grown exponentially in many forms and formats like e-books, e-journals,
etc. and all these are very essential for the survival of the library itself.
The limitation in
finance, space and manpower also stresses upon the need for library consortia.
c)
Use of Consortia: a Library consortium increases the Cost
Benefit per Subscription. The other advantages are:
i) Reduced Information
Cost: Many libraries currently subscribe only to those journals that they can
afford. Though interested in other journals yet they cannot afford to provide
access to them. Consortia approach helps them to provide the access.
ii) Access to More
Resources than the Capabilities: A number of publishers offer consortia. If the
library’s purchase power is big enough they provide access to their whole range
of journals – that is, every member of the consortium gets electronic access
not only to the journals currently subscribed to but also to all the journals
published in the field.
ii) Promoting the
Rational Use of Funds: By forming consortia the purchasing power of the
collaborating institutions can expand the resource availability and offer
automated services.
iii) Ensuring
Continuous Subscription: The continuous subscription to the periodicals
subscribed is ensure in library consortia.
iv) DDS:
Inter-libraries loan services will grow and it is interlinked with the search
of the union catalogues which will build effective DDS. Delivery of documents
will be fast, either electronically through Xeroxing, fax, courier or e-mail.
Consortia will give the
library and also the user extended access- that is, better service for reduced
costs. With subscribed resources accessible online in electronic format, the
member libraries would have less pressure on space requirement for storing and
managing print- based library resources. Moreover, all problems associated with
print media such as their wear and tear, location, shelving, binding,
organizing, etc. would not be an issue for electronic resources.
d)
Popular Library Consortia in India: Library consortia has
become quite popular in India and many intuitions some of which are furnish
below has made use of it.
i) Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) e-Journals Consortium http://124.124.221.7
ii) The Forum for Resource Sharing in Astronomy
& Astrophysics (FORSA) http://www.iiap.res.in/library/forsa.html
iii) Health Sciences Library & Information
Network (HELINET) http://www.rguhs.ac.in/hn/newhell.htm
iv) Indian National Digital Library in Engineering
Sciences and Technology (INDEST) Consortium. http://paniit.iitd.ac.in/indest
v) UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research. http://www.tifr.res.in/~libws
vi) UGC- INFONET. http://web.inflibnet.ac.in/info/ugcinfonet/ugcinfonet.jsp
vii) ISRO Library Consortium, ICMR Library
Consortium, etc.
Post a Comment
Post a Comment