INDEST-AICTE Library Consortia: A Study

Conference Article

1. Two Days’ National Conference on
“ Integrating ICT in Academic
libraries: Making a Different in
Knowledge Age”,Kka,“a.wtwebaK”,j
12, 13 August 2014Organized by
cSRboisa-RyTSoeybzaghaUioRibiui
Organized by
Central University of Karnataka
Venue: Central University, of Karnataka , Gulbarga

2. INDEST- AICTE library consortia: A study
Mr. Prasanna Devaramatha Anilkumar
Research Scholar
Dept. of Library and Information Science
Gulbarga University,
Gulbarga.
Karnataka.
[email protected].

3. Introduction:
 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.
Library consortia is a network for buying and accessing e- information in a cooperative
arrangement among a group of libraries in providing instant access to greater resources
for the users of the individual libraries.
One of the libraries or agencies of the consortia works as coordinator for identification of
libraries for each publisher, negotiation, legal matters, etc. Library consortia may vary
from being decentralized to highly centralize in nature. The degree of centralization of
consortium is the primary factor affecting not only how member institutions interact with
one another, but also maintain relationship with external party (publisher/vendor). More
decentralized the consortium, the greater the degree of autonomy each member retains.

4. Definitions:
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.”

5. Concept of the consortia:

6. Features of Library Consortia
Resource Sharing
Support scholarly research for its users.
Cooperative research and development in application of ICT.
Enhances service and realizes cost effectiveness.
It is the cooperative task to reduce the cost of purchase consortia.
Eend users can take benefits of more resources than would be available
through one library.
Library services are provided with an emphasis on access to new E-
resources including databases and services offered through the internet
and www.
 To expanding inter library searching at less cost .
 Uncertainties in legal issues are handled with more confidence.

7. Advantages of Consortia :-
Building communication among different libraries
Avoid duplication of core collection especially for core journals
Easy access and resource sharing
Reduce cost of information and time saving.
Help to develop a competitive professionalism among LIS professionals.
It becomes a vehicle for distance learning.
It is a tool for distribution of education material and journals to remotest of areas.
It forms a medium for collaboration among teachers and students, not only within
the country but all over the world.
It is on Intranet for university automation.
It establishes a channel for globalization of education.
Disadvantages of consortia
Duplication of efforts
Wastage of resources
Confusion for libraries /publishers
Reduction in purchase power.

8. Brief Information about INDEST:
The idea of the creation of the library consortia, took shape at the
“National Seminar on Knowledge Networking in Engineering & Technology
Education and Research” held at IIT Delhi in December 2000 under the
Ministry of HRD.
The seminar was coordinated by Dr. Jagdish Arora and it was attended
by more than 150 participants from engineering and technological institutions
from all over the country. Based on the feedback, ministry decided to set-up
the expert group in April 2002 for the consortia–based subscription to
electronic resources for Technical Education System in India under the
chairmanship of Prof. N. Balakrishnan from IISc, Bangalore.

9. Homepage of INDEST – AICTE Consortia

10. The INDEST-AICTE Consortium is biggest Consortium in
terms of number of member institutions in Asia.
The Consortium attracts the best possible price and terms of
agreement from the publishers on the basis of strength of its
present and prospective member institutions.
The Consortium subscribes to over 12,000 electronic
journals from a number of publishers and aggregators.
The consortium website at http://paniit.iitd.ac.in/indest
. hosts searchable databases of journals and member
institutions to locate journals subscribed by the
Consortium, their URLs and details of member institutions.

11. Objectives :
To subscribe electronic resources for the members at highly discounted rates of
subscription and at the best terms and conditions.
To extend the benefit of consortia-based subscription beyond the core members to
other engineering and technological institutions.
To impart training to the users and librarians on subscribed and usage of
electronic resources
To find more avenues of cooperation and interaction amongst member libraries.
To increase scientific productivity in terms of quality and quantity of
publications.

12. Selection of E-Resources :
Well established multi-disciplinary resources with broad
coverage were preferred over highly specialized sources
targeted to specialists;
The electronic resources already on subscription in the
beneficiary institutions were preferred over those which are
not being used in any of the beneficiary institutions;
Resources that are “electronic only” were preferred over those
that are print based unless completely unavoidable;
Resources that are very important but highly cost intensive
were preferred over those which are less important or less used
but low cost;
Avoid Resources where electronic versions are made available
free on subscription to their print versions.

13. Services:
Resource Purchaging.
Sharing
Training
Support
Joint Archive and Core relation
Shared Collection

14. Membership:
The INDEST-AICTE Consortium has three types of
members based on funding. Such as
Core members supported by MHRD:
AICTE supported members
Self-supported members:

15. 1.Core members supported by MHRD:
All centrally funded technical institutions including IITs, IISc, ISM, IISERs, NITs,
SLIET, NERIST, IIMs, NITIE, NITTTRs, IIITs and NIFFT were the core members of
the Consortium. The Ministry granted funds for providing differential access to
electronic resources for its core members through the Consortium Headquarters at
IIT Delhi.
In 2003, the number of core members was 37.
In 2009, the number increased to 42 with addition of IISERs.
In 2012 the total number of members increased to 62 with addition of new IITs,
new NITs, and new IIMs.
The consortium has always made continuous effort to include all the centrally
funded technical institutions in the INDEST-AICTE consortium.

16. 2. AICTE supported members
Since March 2003, AICTE provided financial support to the
Government/Government aided institutions and Technical
Universities/ University Departments having programmes in
engineering and technology.
 The Consortium provided IEL, ASCE, ASME and/or ASTP to
60 institutions with AICTE support based on the courses they
offer from 2003 to 2011. These included 37 engineering and
technology colleges and 23 universities having engineering
departments/faculty. All 60 Institutions offer postgraduate
course in engineering and technology.

17. Self-supported members:
The Consortium also helped the technical institution of the country by offering the e-
resources on self-support mode. . The self-supported membership started with 18
members in 2003. In 2005 AICTE joined hand with ‘INDEST Consortium and got
renamed as ‘INDEST-AICTE Consortium’.
 AICTE played a pivotal role in enrolling its approved engineering colleges and
institutes as member of the Consortium with 6 e-resources (IEL Online, ASCE,
ASME, Springer Link, DEL, and ESDU).
 In 2007 over 23 e-resources were negotiated by INDEST-AICTE Consortium for the
self-supported institutes. The rates of subscription each year are posted at INDEST-
AICTE Consortium web site for subscription renewal. There was a constant increase
in the number of institutions up to 2011. Over six years the number of engineering
colleges serviced were about 1000.
In 2012, AICTE proposed mandatory e-resources for the AICTE affiliated engineering
colleges. AICTE negotiated the price with the publishers and asked each institutes to
subscribe the e-resources directly through publisher’s websites. The total number of
institutions subscribing to e-resources increased to 1500, whereas the consortium
provided e-resources to 102 institutes.

18. AICTE- INDEST Consortia subscribe E Resources:
ABI INFORM , ACM Digital Library, AIP Journals, APS Journals
Annual Review, ASCE Journals, ASME Journals, ASTM Standards
Capitaline, CRIS INFAC Ind. Information
EBSCO Business Source Complete, Elsevier's Science Direct
Emerald Management Xtra, Euromonitor – Passport
ICE + Thomas Telford, IEC Standards
IEEE/IEE Electronic Library Online (IEL), IET Digital Library
INSIGHT, JSTOR Through NME-ICT Project
McGraw Hill's AccessEngineering (FKA DEL)
Nature (27 titles through NME-ICT Project)
Optical Society Of America(Optics Infobase)
ProQuest Science (formerly ASTP)
SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis (Through NME-ICT Project)
INSPEC, MathSciNet, SciFinder, Scopus Database
Web of Science

19. Conclusion:
INDEST – AICTE consortia is play as most significant role in E
Resources specially in the field of Engineering, Science and
Technology.
Its has good objectives and mission to provide good services to its
members.
 There are several types of E resources are available under this
consortia with less or minimum cost.
In 2012, AICTE proposed mandatory e-resources for the AICTE
affiliated engineering colleges.
Membership libraries have build or acquire good E resources under this
consortia to reach globalization in learning and research.

20. Thank You