E-journal Consortium: Is it a Success Story Always?

S.J.D. Varaprasad; S. Madhusudhan

doi:10.14429/djlit.30.2.10

S.J.D. Varaprasad Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad-500 007
S. Madhusudhan Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad-500 007

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.30.2.10

Keywords: Consortium, e-journals, CSIR e-journal consortium, IISc, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology

Abstract

Libraries have experienced many transformations along with time. Scenario has further changed with the information explosion and advent of Internet and telecommunications technologies. Information seeking has become much more complex due to ever increasing amount of data, in both printed and electronic forms, and no single library is self-sufficient to purchase all the books/e-books, journals/e-journals and other library documents within their library budgets. Library consortium is one of the solutions to overcome this problem.
However, due to ever increasing prices of journals, vendor dominated market, lack of competition, and for other reasons, question of whether consortium approach, some of the experiences in accessing e-journals through this approach, a viable alternative for journal’s price hike or not? This paper is a case study of CSIR e-journal Consortium and discusses need for consortia, types, advantages and disadvantages of a consortium, problems faced by the consortiums and possible solutions for some of these problems.

DOI: 10.14429/djlit.30.10