PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the initiative of the University Grants Commission of India in setting up the Infonet Digital Library Consortium (The Information and Library Network) in order to provide access to scholarly communication to the academic community in India.Design/methodology/approachThe context of higher education in India and the expansion and establishment of universities under the five‐year plan is given along with details of e‐resources that are being provided. The usage trends of e‐resources from various publishers during 2004‐2007 are detailed.FindingsThe paper finds that there has been a qualitative increase in overall usage, but use is also dependent on a high‐bandwidth connection.Originality/valueThe study provides evidence of increased use of consortial services for access to e‐resources in Indian higher education.
Study was conducted to formulate region specific standard animal units (SAUs) more comprehensively by considering labour utilization as well as size of animals. Both primary as well as secondary data were used in the study. Primary data were collected from 2,700 households from 18 districts of nine states. Conversion coefficients were formulated by aggregating coefficients of bodyweight and labour utilization and giving appropriate weights based on the experts’ opinion. We found that the dairy farmers devoted majority of their time on care and maintenance of milch animals in the herd. Heifers got almost equal or even more priority in care and maintenance than the adult male bovines. The intensity of labour utilization in crossbred cow as compared to local adult female was higher. The overall conversion coefficients were higher for crossbred cow. The estimated regional coefficients will be helpful in estimation of costs and returns in not only in dairying but also in other livestock production. Besides the overall SAU, the separate estimation of SAU based on bodyweight and labour utilization pattern will serve the purpose of both social as well as biological research studies, particularly for studies carrying capacity, housing management and overall farm planning.
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to describe the union databases maintained by the INFLIBNET for university libraries in India. INFLIBNET maintains union databases of serials, books, theses and an “experts” database. Efforts to collect the raw data, maintain it and make it available to the end user via the internet are also discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe article describes the workflow of maintaining union databases and the steps involved are discussed. Various software are being used to provide a systematic approach to these databases and to ensure that the searching for needed documents is user friendly; the user should be able to go automatically to the document supply system with a single click of the mouse button.FindingsIf the library system is large, it becomes most important to know the location of documents. The Indian educational system is one of the largest in the world. INFLIBNET maintains union databases of various types of documents for more than 150 university libraries and membership is growing rapidly to accommodate all university and college libraries. Many best procedures on bibliographic standards and guidelines have been adopted and are updated regularly. UniCat, an in house software package has been used to process bibliographic raw data which is then hosted on the website for access by users.Originality/valueThis article is significant to researchers and librarians in India and also more widely.
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