Abstract
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal. Library consortium gives the freedom for a library having a smaller collection to access any product at a nominal price. The chapter has shown that 58 (31.53%) assistant professors occasionally use it, followed by 44 (23.92%) respondents using it frequently, 39 (21.2%) respondents use it rarely, 26 (14.14%) respondents use it very frequently, and 17 (09.24%) respondents never use it.
TopIntroduction
Education plays an important role in the growth of any civilization. College level education is one among the different levels in the education scheme in divulging the value-based education in different disciplines. Colleges are the most important institutions of society for the creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge as well as the custodians of intellectual and ethical traditions and values in society. Colleges serve teaching, learning and research needs of education in the country. Information and Communication Technology Consists of the hardware, software, networks, and media for the collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information (voice, data, text, images) as well as related services. Academic libraries are the nerve centers of academic institutions and must support teaching, research, and other academic programmers. The situation in academic libraries of India is the same as that of academic libraries in the world over; still, India the college libraries are providing maximum information with limited resources.
The library holdings in terms of books, journals, and other learning materials and technology-aided learning mechanisms which enable students and faculty members to acquire information, knowledge, and skills required for their study programmes. A recent development in the field due to the availability of digital means, the functioning of the library has undergone a drastic change. Uses of e-journals and books, providing remote access to e-resources in the library have become a matter of necessity. Providing for these and such other developments as well as utilizing them well are important indicators of the quality of an academic institution. The modernization of libraries and information centers enabled to information transfer and access, thereby helping in established of well-known the network of libraries and information centers. This initiative paved the way for resource development, resource sharing and their utilization at various levels.
Library Consortium
Library consortium is an umbrella term which covers the concept with co-operation it was possible for sharing of union catalog, document delivery services, storage facilities, collection development, and human resources at local, national and regional level. It is the single solution of these concepts consortium gives the freedom for a library having less collection as they can access any product at the nominal price. The concept of consortium originated from the concept of cooperation, coordination, and collaboration. The consortium is originated from the Latin word “Consor” where “con” indicates the meaning of together and “sor” describes the meaning of partnership, association or society. The term ‘consortia’ is used synonymously as an alliance, coalition, collaboration, cooperation, partnership, etc.
Consortium plays a very important role in the field of library and information centers for resources sharing because it provides better sharing options for available resources in E-format. Presently Academic libraries were meet the problems due to the increasing costs of publications, particularly periodicals and the reducing space capacity of libraries it has become difficult to buy e-resources. Resource sharing as a concept has evolved into the conception of library consortia. According to ICOLC (International Coalition Of Library Consortia), the library partnership is an important concept leading to consortia formation, which brings about the following activities within the group: Licensing (e-journal, core e-resources and full text), Governance (Funding, strategic planning, membership), Library and management system migration, linked systems projects and virtual union catalogs, with patron-initiates ILL, Cooperative collection and management, training, creation of digital collections and shared storage. The core values of consortia are collaboration, joint procurement, and networking (IOCLC Guidelines).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Online Resources: In general, web pages and documents on the internet that provide useful information. While an online resource is typically data and educational in nature, any support software available online can also be considered a resource.
DAE Consortium: The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Consortium, initiated in 2003, caters to the information requirement of 36 institutes including BARC, TIFR and SAMEER. The consortium is funded by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Govt. of India.
E-Resources: Electronic resources (or e-resources) are materials in digital format accessible electronically. Examples of e-resources are electronic journals (e-journal), electronic books (e-book) online databases in varied digital formats, Adobe Acrobat documents (.pdf), web pages.
Internet: The internet is a collection of computers that share information. Home users commonly use a phone modem, cable modem, or DSL connection to connect to the internet. an internet service provider (ISP) connects the home user to other computers.
Search Engine: Internet search engine is a software system that is designed to carry out web search (Internet search), which means to search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a line of results, often referred to as search engine results pages.