Tapping knowledge instantly

Updated on: Monday, December 28, 2009

Books and journals have found their way to the desktops of students and research scholars. Thanks to the advent of electronic resources, easy, quick and anytime access to books and journals have become the order of the day in higher education.

Access to reading and research materials is no longer time-bound for students of higher education. E-resources - books, journals, databases and theses - have in fact revolutionised the ways students and research scholars read and access materials.

“There has been a paradigm shift in the methodology of reading with the advent of e-resources. Students of higher education are increasingly looking for electronic information. The need for information is on a 24x7 basis on the desktop. E-resources serve this need,” says R. Samyuktha, Librarian, Pondicherry University.

The university has to its credit subscription to 18,000 full texts, mostly international works, and 7,000 e-books. The library portal has turned into a one-stop point where users will be able to access to all information including online catalogue of print books available in the library, e-journals offered by the University Grants Commission consortium, e-journal gateway, e-books and free Internet tutorials, she points out.

“E-resources have become the order of the day. It has several features such as subject gateways which provide online resources on a particular theme/discipline,” she says, adding that the need to physically visit a library for books is vanishing.

Experts feel that e-resources have effected a change in information-seeking in higher education. “Why, libraries are also using blogs, twitters, chat, youtube to upload videos (web 2.0 technology) for being more user-friendly, and facilitate virtual referencing. Also, different gadgets are being developed such as e-book readers,” she points out.

For libraries, e-resources have facilitated scores of advantages including occupying less space, enabling multiple access and lack of mutilation or loss as in the case of books, Ms. Samyuktha says.

Hemalatha Bhat, who is doing Ph.D in Department of Sociology, is an extensive user of e-resources. “The facility has brought information close at hand. Previously, it was a tedious process of getting books from publishers who have published books in my area of research. Sometimes, books have to be shipped or the copy was not available or out of print. But with e-resources, such problems have been solved with the advent of e-books and journals in digitised format.”

She says that more and more students are taking recourse to electronic resources.

“It has become a necessity. In fact, the quality of work has improved drastically as it helps to refer to other journals too. The positive side is that I will be able to know how different my research is,” she points out.

Another doctoral candidate in the department of Politics and International Studies, Sashi Kumar, says that e-resources have revolutionised the way research is being done. “Earlier, we had to rely on hard copies. There was a high demand for particular books. With the availability of e-versions of books, there is no need to confine to library timings but flexibility has come in,” he says.

Cost factor

Recalling his experience, Mr. Kumar says, “Previously, I had to travel to Delhi every six months to get back versions of journals on topics such as international security and foreign affairs. With e-resources, I can access these journals often and save time. The cost factor has also reduced. The availability of dissertation abstracts and full texts, both national and international, also helps research scholars.”

However, he insisted on proper utilisation of the facility. “E-resources are quite numerous and many students have a tendency to download material. It is important to finalise the area of research and topic first, collect review and then go to e-resources. There is a sea of information and it is important to get a proper perspective,” he explains, while Ms. Bhat says there are plenty of user-training programmes available for research scholars on how to use the e-resources. “We need to refine the search and see how best it would suit the particularly topic,” she suggests.

Common platform

Prathap Kumar Shetty, Head, Department of Food Science and Technology, Pondicherry University, accesses e-resources both for teaching and research.

“I access materials in the disciplines of microbiology, biochemistry, and in general, life sciences. E-resources serve as a platform for random access to multiple users at the same time. In the case of books, we have to search by index but e-resources save plenty of time. Through this, we can keep abreast of information faster. Moreover, waiting in queue for books is a thing of the past,” he says.

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