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The 'publish or perish' race among researchers force at least some of them to opt for quick outlets for publication, making them fall into the trap of predatory journals. With a strong base and history of research institutions and journals, the present study explores grooming a reasonable number of quality journals in India to tackle the menace of predatory publishing. The data presented are collected from different sources to work out the approximate minimum number of quality journals that can be strengthened using state-of-the-art technology solutions as well as internationally competitive journal editorial, review and publishing procedures. It is difficult to deal with the commercial interests of predatory publishers through academic safeguards alone. However, their negative impact can be contained through a set of action plans by various stakeholders, such as sensitizing authors about the perils of predatory publishing, training new authors about the nuances of academic publishing to facilitate their manuscripts getting accepted in good journals, strengthening Indian journals to publish more quality papers, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basing the emails about openings that appeared during January 2009 to August 2015 in few mailing lists, the paper examines the advertisements, positions, designations, locations, institutions, qualifications, duration, compensation, age limit, and special skills required for intern positions. The paper proposes a revamped internship routine giving equal weightage to pragmatic work-based learning of library routines blended with academic, development and research activities. The selection process, nature and mode of recruitment, preference to fresh or experienced candidates, work constraints, work profile, honorarium and deliverables are illustrated. The potential locations for deploying interns are estimated using data from different sources. Similarly, the enrolment and pass-out details of library science students are assessed to estimate the required number of intern positions. The number of intern positions to be accommodated in every institution depends on the strength and diversity of its library activities and the present staff strength. To strengthen internship in libraries, a national policy regarding the operationalization of the scheme in all libraries may be pursued as a vital CSR initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to present the library's and librarian's view point of dealing with remainder books and sensitise librarians and researchers about the trade in remainder books which enter the market disguised as genuine books and sold as such despite instructions from government, trade agencies and libraries about selling remainders. Based on the available literature on the trade of remainder books, a case study has been attempted in the light of the book acquisition activity of one year for a University Library. Since there is no explicit declaration from booksellers about which titles they supply are remainders, libraries have to resort to indirect options to identify them. It has been observed that over 80% of the books procured in a typical higher education library in the country are in English language. Of these, though 51% of books are either printed in India or priced in Indian Rupees, the remaining 49% of books have prices in foreign currencies. Out of a panel of over 50 book suppliers involved in supplying books of interest to the said Library, it was found that 12 suppliers actively canvassed for more number of books through frequent visits, providing large number of titles on approval for examination and through continuous interactions with teachers. Around 76% of the money spent for purchasing books is canvassed by these 12 suppliers for supplying 51% of the books procured. They supplied 2559 titles in English priced in foreign currencies (around 76% of such cases); out of which 68% only are published in the last four years. It was confirmed that over 32% of the procured books priced in foreign currencies are published at least four years before the year of purchase and some or many of these titles might have entered the country through the remainder route. The publisher never informs libraries about throwing a particular title in the remainder market. Similarly the importer/distributor/bookseller never certifies about the receipt of such a title through that route. It has also been observed that documents to support a remainder title being procured as genuine are made overnight by trade parties as per the demands of individual libraries. Due to the lack of actual data concerning remainder books in the country which the importers, distributors, booksellers and other entities are trying to closely guard from public and libraries, there are not many studies on remainder books deterrent measures to be taken by libraries which is adversely impacting the quality of book collection in libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journals are the main vehicles for disseminating research publications and one can gauge the standard of research in the country through its publications. India has a growing population of researchers and academics who want to publish and search for easy outlets guaranteeing quick publication. Indian journals as a whole and LIS journals in particular fail miserably when it comes to maintaining quality. There should be a first received first reviewed and first published policy to be adopted by Indian LIS journals. Indian journal editors need to be more communicative with authors and they should adopt the best practices followed by the international journal editors. Indian LIS researchers have few journals and conference proceedings to publish their papers on the one hand and there is a need to publish more papers for professional progress. This has become important especially in the aftermath of the Academic Performance Indicators (APIs) introduced by the UGC after the VI Central Pay Revision where 55% of API scores can be claimed through publications. Through consortia based access, LIS researchers are exposed to what is being studied in the advanced countries. Thus more number of papers by LIS researchers from India are appearing in international journals. There are also many papers getting wasted in conference proceedings and festschrift volumes and editor interest driven book chapters. Such publications never have a wider reach and suffer from poor bibliographic control. Authors and researchers need to conserve their research output by opting for its wider dissemination and better visibility by opting to publish in quality journals and they can strengthen Indian journals only by publishing their best papers in these journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a personalised information support system to help faculty members to search various portals and e-resources without typing the search terms in different interfaces and to obtain results re-ordered without human intervention. Design/methodology/approach - After a careful survey of various tools and techniques available for computerised client-centred information services, the study selected to apply web usage mining, proxy level data collection and a vector space retrieval model to develop the personalised information support for teaching and research in a higher education institution. Findings - There are practical constraints in the implementation stage. There is considerable difficulty in getting real and correct user interests and mapping them effectively into the products and services offered by the library. Also the interests of users change continuously, If multiple users share the same PC, it is difficult to identify the user as there is no one-to-one mapping between user and IP address. Research limitations/implications - The paper has not considered cases for all the faculty members due to time constraints. The results obtained from the system also need correlation with the sources actually used by the faculty to test its efficacy in a highly fluid research situation like higher academics. Practical implications - A pragmatic client-centred information support prototype described in this paper may find use in other institutions needing similar information support. Originality/value - This paper demonstrates the pragmatic application of ICT for linking users and e-resources in an academic library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study details e-book subscriptions at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Library, New Delhi, India, and describes the various publishers and aggregators of e-books, collections, pricing models, access, functionality, and other important features of various packages. It highlights the challenges to overcome in stabilizing e-book solutions for academic libraries, especially libraries operating for the benefit of off-campus learners. The study considers the elements and strategies of e-book collection development and access which must be adopted by academic libraries, especially for distance education facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is based on the journal publications generated by the Nuclear Science Centre (NSC) [now known as Inter University Accelerator Centre] and the Accelerator Group at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) during 1997-1999. The data was collected from the annual reports of the two institutions and analyzed using scientometric tools and techniques. The impact was examined with the help of Science Citation Index (SCI). The analysis highlights yearly output, publication in national or international journals, number of papers in SCI-journals and non-SCI journals, normalized impact factor (NIF) per paper, category-wise distribution of papers in different NW ranges, the proportion of high NW papers, papers above the average NW. NSC is a facility exclusive for accelerator research and its Annual Report gives clear indication of the different specializations, hence the data for NSC is further analyzed in three subdivisions of nuclear physics, materials science, and radiation biology and others. However, such an analysis for TIFR was not attempted due to the lack of such information in its Annual Report. From the study one can have an idea about the performance and impact of the research conducted in the two institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grey literature refers to an extensive range of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers, but which is frequently original and usually recent. It is produced more quickly and has greater flexibility. Grey literature comprises newsletters, reports, bulletins and so on. It has tremendous importance in all fields of knowledge. In India, there are 12 open universities. These open Universities generate a voluminous amount of grey literature-Theses, dissertations, and working papers, technical reports, bulletins, self instructional material, audio, video material, radio broadcasts. Such documents contain very valuable and often detailed information like observations, conclusions, analyses and primary data, which constitute intellectual capital of the universities. These publications are not accessible to the scientists and academicians outside that particular university. The present study suggests a model for providing accessibility, thereby facilitating visibility, legitimacy to the grey literature, which is generated at open universities in India. The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is a national university and an international center of excellence with a mission to take Higher Education to the masses. With its head quarters at New Delhi, the University serves its learners through a network of 46 regional centers 765 study centers across the nation. The University offers over 130 academic, vocational and continuing education programmes. IGNOU should initiative a program to acquire all self instructional material, project reports, dissertations, theses, working papers from all open universities and develop a national level repository because it has a mandate to set standards in Distance Education in the country. The study highlights the role of library professionals in this regard. They ought to undertake an outreach campaign with the goal of imparting the importance of availability of grey literature at the right time to the researchers. It is estimated that every year an expenditure of 17,000 US$ will be involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries in India are progressing well in automating house-keeping operations, refining old services and starting fresh ones. There is also an increasing presence of electronic information sources, external and internal, and services based upon them. Libraries have progressively adopted library automation software, CD-ROM databases, and Web access to electronic journals and digital libraries. With each advance in technology the time of the user to retrieve information has shown a drastic reduction. The emergence and increasing availability of the Internet and Web has led to a lot of information outside the library tempting users to depend less on libraries and to explore these alternate routes to fulfill their information needs. The rise in number and variety of information resources and the inability of most libraries to acquire/access them also leaves the libraries less able to meet the needs of clients, forcing the library and staff to shy away from their new roles. Largely a service hi many institutions that does not enjoy the power of research and teaching staff, the plight of library professionals in many of these institutions results in low morale and underperformance. This paper attempts to look into these issues and the cultures and conflicts faced by users, libraries and librarians in academic and research libraries in India. It identifies the library as a service and access centre, managing and enhancing information in a technology-enhanced environment rather than as a mere repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to discuss the constraints faced while evaluating the book acquisition system at the Central Library of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur using reporting options offered by the library automation package, LibSys. The study examines how the Acquisition Section of the Central Library, IIT Kharagpur meets the expectation of its users and suppliers using parameters such as time involved for ordering, accessioning for making payment. The Section is also interested in assessing the performance of its different suppliers considering the percentage of books supplied and the time required to supply them. Since the evaluation is to be conducted in a time bound manner, it has been decided not to use the manual registers to collect the required data considering the time involved in scanning and analyzing manual data. Only option left out is to use the LibSys that facilitates data outputting through its different reports. This paper discusses the constraints faced while collecting data and proposes the need for 'customer specific' report options in commercial software packages. The paper also highlights the importance of suitable provisions in automation packages for evaluating the performance of different sections of library and its various stake holders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of a questionnaire based survey conducted among the premier libraries in the Thiruvananthapuram city of Kerala to assess the Information Technology adoption in these libraries. Results reveal that the libraries are very positive about the use of IT in libraries and many of the libraries are IT intensive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will present some of the developments in providing refined information services and better information organization such as the electronic SDI service and in-house library software development work in the library of a premier academic institute in India. It will also stress activities concerned with professional development and growth such as experiences gained as part of the technical committee in a national level conference, activities as moderator of IFLA's listserver for Library & Information Science in India (INDIA-US), and work related to US education. The paper also describes some aspects of the future plan, of evolving a content personalization system with the aid of electronic contents procured through subscriptions and consortia access as well as free resources on the Web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares the status of India with USA, South Asia and the World based on selected social parameters. Education has emerged as a very active and investment intensive area in India. Some statistics on the education scene are presented. Provides an illustrative list of information transforming projects as well as people. Finds that the neo-rich in India are more convinced about the need of technology to address socio-economic problems and are aware of the value of information in tackling social issues. Discusses some of the possible challenges and probable solutions that come in the way of information being used as an enabler for improving the social status of citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifies the important activities public libraries must initiate to sustain the science communication initiatives. Some of the problems in spreading science awareness in the country are also identified. Concludes that in addition to the science awareness initiatives from government institutions, NGOs, science clubs, by involving public libraries in the people's science information dissemination network will enhance the science awareness activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study gives an account of how the e-resources in general and EBSCO, PROQUEST, Project MUSE, and JSTOR in particular were used in the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India. It studies and highlights the access pattern of the patrons in an open university. The study suggests consistency and uniformity in computing and presenting usage statistics reports so that reports from various providers can be compared. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]