Electronic Information Resources
In addition to the print information resources detailed out above, the Scientists and Students are facilitated with offline/online access to a series of electronic information resources. Anytime anywhere access to these e-resources has also been set in place to ensure optimum utilisation of this valuable treasure of knowledge and meet the information requirements of users at their place or work and study. A brief about each e-resource is given as under:
CeRA (consortium) Now ONOS
The Scientists and Students of the University all across the constituent Campii of the University continued to avail access to full text of +3500 e-journals relevant to Agriculture and allied disciplines. CeRA is now available on J-Gate+ (http://jgateplus.com/ the largest Indian electronic gateway to global e-journal literature. Seamless access to bibliographical details & abstracts of millions of journal articles (above 83.57 million) offered by 15,294 Publishers was thus provided to users. Presently it provides access to a massive database of journal literature, indexed from 67,487 e-Journals, Conference-Proceedings, Book series, with links to full text at publisher end.
From January 2025 ONOS takes the idea of a consortium and scales it up to a national subscription level, making it a core part of India's strategy to foster research and innovation under the National Education Policy 2020. The ONOS initiative is a transformative step to bridge the knowledge gap and advance India's research ecosystem. By providing comprehensive access to world-class resources, it empowers students, faculty, and researchers to achieve academic and scientific excellence. This integrated approach will drive innovation, strengthen India's global leadership in research, and lay the foundation for a self-reliant, knowledge driven nation by 2047. The ONOS initiative provides access to over 13,000 scholarly journals from 30 leading international publishers. It targets over 6,300 government-run higher education institutions and research centres.
CABI eBooks:
Access to world’s leading e-Book collection in Agriculture & Allied Disciplines i.e. Centre for Agriculture and Bio-Science International (CABI) eBooks is also being provided to Scientists & Students on anytime anywhere basis. Perpetual access to full text of 566 Refereed eBooks with coverage from 2000 to 2010 has been made available to users on this platform. Backup of full text of these e-books on DVDs has been collected from the publisher to facilitate full text search and retrieval through offline mode as well.
e-Book Series of Elsevier:
Access to full text of 1174 e-books along with 17 e-book series of Elsevier has been kept available by the Library System in collaboration with Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA), ICAR - DKMA . The online access to these books is being availed by the Scientists and the Students of all constituent Faculties through Science Direct (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/bookbshsrw via IP based access at respective campii and via remote login facility against authorized username and password provided to them by the Library.
EBSCO e-Books:
Perpetual (life-time) access to 122 foreign publications of reputed publishers in the field of Agro-Biological Sciences has been subscribed through M/s. EBSCO Host.
E-Books Subscribed on Annual Basis:
Moreover, access to a large number of books is ascertained on annual basis as per the availability of budget and in accordance with the requirement of library clientele. For example, a package of around 1,70,000 e-books related to agriculture and allied sciences, entitled “Academic Collection” was subscribed during recent past through M/s. EBSCO Host.
E-Books of Indian Publishers:
Indian Publishers have also started to provide annual as well as perpetual access to their publications. M/s. New India Pvt. Ltd. (NIPA) has started one such portal and the SKUAST-K Library System has subscribed 53 e-Books purely pertaining to Agriculture and allied sciences.
E-Theses via KrishiKosh:
Full text access to Doctoral Dissertations was first started as KrishiPrabha and then migrated to a new platform called KrishiKosh. Access to more than 1,90,000 Theses (Both Masters and Doctoral) has been made available to the Scientists and Students through this national level e-Theses repository under NARES. In addition to the Theses more that 2,00,000 digital items produced by State Agricultural Universities and Agricultural Research Institutes of India are available in this online repository. KrishiKosh is being continuously updated by posting the newly added Theses submitted by PhD Scholars of SKUAST-K. Up to July 2023 one thousand six hundred twenty five Theses (1109 Masters’ and 516 Doctoral) have been placed on this portal, while maintaining an embargo period of one year.
Indexing and Abstracting (I&A) Databases:
The Library System has developed a rich collection of indexing & abstracting databases (11 CDROM Databases bibliographical detail and abstracts of journal articles of world famous titles in digital/electronic form) subscribed from 2003 with retrospective data from 1972. About 15.15 million research articles (bibliographical data along with the abstracts) are available in these databases. Mention worthy among them are CAB Abstracts (6.75 million), AGRIS (3.20 million), AGRICOLA (3.30 million), VetCD (0.55 million), MEDLINE (1.10 million) and FSTA (1.0 million).
Institutional Repository:
The library system has developed an institutional repository while using an open source digital library software ‘DSpace’ of MIT and HP. The information sources have been placed under four categories viz. (i) Theses, (ii) Research Paper, (iii) Seminar & Symposia Proceedings and (iv) Open Access Information Sources. By the end of year 2018-19 the full text of 976 Theses (including 633 Masters’/ 343 Doctoral), 3201 Research Papers (niche areas of research) and 90 Seminar & Symposia Proceedings has been kept available for the access of authorised/registered members of SKUAS-K Library System through this repository.
The repository has been placed on local network of LAMP atmosphere to ensure its reliable access, fast delivery and foolproof, secure & smooth usage. This has enabled the Library System to facilitate its users with use of this valuable treasure irrespective of availability of Internet access in an offline mode at each campus library over LAN. The data of the repository has recently been migrated from Windows based SQL to Linux based MySQL and a new user interface has been developed for its online access and smart search & retrieval.
India Agri-Stat on CeRA Platform:
IndiaAgristat.com (http://www.indiaagristat.com /default.aspx) is owned by M/s. Datanet India and has been established to collect, compile, consolidate and deliver the socio-economic statistical information about agriculture in India. This valuable information base has been subscribed by ICAR on consortia basis and has been made available for use of Scientists and the Students of NARES on anytime anywhere basis through CeRA Platform. The database provides a simple search option for retrieval of desired information as well as some readily available customised retrieval options providing an opportunity to retrieve statistical data on different manifestations of Agriculture in India with a click of button. It also facilitates the users to prepare desired graphs and charts with utmost ease and least involvement of effort.
Remote Access to E-Resources:
The e-resources available with SKUAST-K Library System were made accessible remotely on anytime anywhere basis through subscription of a cloud based remote (off-campus) access facilitation software Knimbus. This software has enabled the Scientists and Students to access all e-resources from a single platform providing one stop access to a host of subscribed & open access e-resources, who now do not need to remember the individual URLs and wander from window to window in search of information they need. A good number of Scientists (223) and Students (719) stand registered for availing remote access facility through authentic username & password provided to them by the Library System.
Databases Available:
Bibliographic detail of print resources available in SKUAST-K Library System is recorded and continuously updated in the following databases:
Database of Books/Theses operating on KOHA Software hosting 26300 Books, 2900 Theses and 1583 gratis items.
Database of Research Articles available in print only format called as Article Alert Database, which is actually an article level indexing and retrieval system, holding bibliographic detail of a total number of 1,09,000.
Journal Directory:
An indexing and retrieval system of journal titles available in print backfile archive of journals. It holds bibliographic detail of about 21,343 journal issues with their current status and location in the constituent libraries.
Electronic Accession Register:
An electronic version of 9 volumes of print accession registers holding bibliographic detail of Books and Theses procured by the Central Library for all constituent libraries since the inception of the University. A software developed by Dr. Nazir Ahmad Bhat (Assistant Librarian) is being used to maintain this database that is capable of holding the record and generating customized report as per the time to time requirement of the Library System and the University Authorities. It proves to be a highly used and robust searching and retrieval system for about 50,000 Books and 2,900 Theses.