Electronic Collection

1.2 Electronic Sources

Keeping in view the advantages of the electronic form of information resources and inclination of users towards this format of information, efforts were made to enrich the electronic information base in the shape of e-abstract databases, e-books, e-journals, e-theses, e-reports, etc.

1.2.1 CDROM Library

The 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 were kept readily available in offline mode for use of the students and scholars of the University. 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). A good number of scientists/students/scholars from all the faculties visited the Central Library during this period to avail this facility. It may not be out of place here to mention that more than 8.50 lac records were downloaded in soft form by the scientists/students/scholars for carrying out research activities at their end. The scientists/students/scholars were also facilitated with full text research papers available in the indigenously created data bank of this library, developed by downloading niche area research articles/chapters and through depositing the same in the said database for free and fare use purpose.

1.2.2 Books in Electronic Form (e-Books)

A good number of e-Books, with perpetual access, are now available for anytime anywhere access of the registered users of SKUAST-Kashmir Library System. As of date more than 1900 curricula based e-books published by leading international and national publishers have thus been kept readily available both on-campus and off-campus use of registered users. For fare use purpose these e-books can be downloaded and saved without any restrictions on content or number of downloads. Detail of e-Books made available to users of SK Library System till date is given under as Table 3.

Table 3: Cumulative breakup of e-Books available with SK Library System