Submitted by

Kalpita K. Potawad

M.L.I.Sc

2012-2013

Definition of Consortia A Consortium could be described as a group of organizations who come together to fulfill a combined objective that usefully requires co-operation and the sharing of resources and need to have a clear mutual goal in order to ensure their success. The aim should be to deliver “more than the sum of the individual parts”. A library Consortium formation can be local, regional, state, national and inter institutional level.

Need for library consortiumThe consortium is needed for libraries because of: 1. Information explosion 2. Diversity of user needs 3. Financial crunch 4. Impossibility of self-sufficiency

Issues related to library consortiumVarious factors to be taken for an effective functioning of a successful consortium. The major issues of consortia approaches are

Selecting a coordinating agency to deal on behalf of the entire group of participants and Executing and monitoring the work.

Sources of funding to meet the subscription cost Identifying and negotiating the potential publishers /

vendors or aggregators to provide Access under consortia purchase.

Source of funding to meet the subscription cost Legal issues involved in contracts and usage of material

within the consortia. Identification of libraries interested in participating and

agreeing on common terms and conditions. Identifying the necessary infrastructure from electronic

access to resources Issues related to backup and archival of database Documentation and training to staff. Designing and launching a library consortium should be long

run

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INTRODUCTION

The voluminous growth of published documents in the recent past, increasing cost of information resources, technological advancements that offer newer methods of information processing, retrieval and dissemination are some of the factors which have made partnership a necessity. Building partnership is currently a way of business to leverage the resources in order to provide more effective services. Partnership allows to gain competitive advantage by pooling the resources. Because of mutual interests and complementary skills, partnership brings better solutions. Partnership goals and the plan must be shared by all participating organizations. The partnership must also be aligned with the missions and visions of all participating organizations. Resources must be identified to accomplish the plan, and the plan must be frequently reviewed and updated as new information becomes available. The professional relationship among the partners must be based on mutual respect and an interest in participation in a win/win manner. A successful partnership may take years to develop to the point that all participants possess the trust needed to share.

Need of resource sharing was realized by IIM Libraries. Besides entering into the interlibrary loan practice, IIM Libraries also thought seriously of resource sharing in many other areas such as cooperative acquisition, cooperative processing and decentralized utilization. The concept of IIM Consortium has been floated a few years back. IIM Consortium is becoming a reality. The two areas

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were identified for partnership viz., (a) developing the collection on shared basis, and (b) developing the services for exploiting such collection. IIM Library consortium has in the last one year successfully executed a few shared acquisition services viz., Science Direct of Elsevier, John Wiley electronic journals and Kluwer electronic journals, Proquest and EBSCO services. More areas are identified for partnership.

IIM History

Indian Institutes of Management have been set up by the Government of India as Institutes of higher learning to help improve management systems in the country. Together they cover widest range of activities, setting standard of performance in everything they do. This family comprises six institutions as centers of excellence. They are Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA, 1961), Indian Institute of management Calcutta (IIMC 1961), Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB, 1972), Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIML, 1984), Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK, 1996) and Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIMI, 1996).

Each institute is an autonomous body registered as an independent society in respective state. State governments have played an important role in the formation and functioning of these institutions.

IIM’s Library Consortia-Indian Institute of Management

IIM Library consortia is a Digital Library network system based on internet technology to provide the IIM community (faculty, students and staff) an online web enabled access to the information resources available in all the IIMs without any barriers of time and distance. It will be a simple, efficient and cost effective system. The basic operating principle of this system is

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decentralized acquisition, decentralized processing and centralized utilization.

IIM’s Library Consortia Members.

1. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), http://www.iimahd.ernet.in2. Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), http://www.iimb.ernet.in/3. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMCAL), http://www.iimcal.ac.in4. Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIMI), http://www.iimidr.ac.in5. Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK), http://www.iimk.ac.in6. Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIML), http://www.iiml.ac.in

IIMLIIMK

IIMIIIMCAL

IIMBIIMA

IIMs Library Consortia Members

Activities

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All the Institutes conduct Postgraduate Programs in Management Programme, Long and Short duration Management Development Programmes, Faculty Development, Research and provide consulting support. The first four conduct doctoral programme also known as Fellow Program in Management. Some of them offer Interactive Distance Learning Programmes. Besides, they offer individually a wide range of other sharply focused set of activities by establishing various specialized centers.

IIM LIBRARY CONSORTIA

Indian Institutes of Management are premier national business management education set up by the legislation of Government of India. The major objective of the Institutes is to train young graduates to become professional managers. To achieve the objective each IIM set up libraries to support teaching, learning, research and other consultancy activities of the institutes, now all of them are fully modernized. The concept of IIM Library Consortium has been floated a few years back, when the IIMs Libraries felt to interact on the possible sharing of their subscribed digital resources, and a pilot study was conducted to identify the currently subscribed digital resources among the IIMs. Subsequently, the IIMs Directors, in a meeting held at IIMK during August 2001 approved the formation of the ‘consortia’ and encouraged the libraries to actively participate for mutual benefit.

Accordingly, the libraries jointly identified the consolidated electronic resources, which will be of great relevance to the IIM community and invited the major publishers/vendors of databases, journals and other value added service providers. Naturally the published/vendors enthusiastically responded to the invitation, even they invitation; even they made their presentation along with their competitive offers for the consortia. In some cases they offered at drastically reduced price-as much as 40-45 percent discounts, provided all IIMs subscribe to the same resources, viz. ABI/INFORM-full text, Business sources Premier, Gale Products, Global Marketing Information Database,

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etc; and other resources, viz., EBSCO-BSE, EconLit-Ovid, CAPITALINE, INDIA INFORMER, etc. were priced in a rational way.

Therefore, being a closed proportion, IIM Consortia identified two areas for partnership viz. developing the collection on shared basis, and developing the services exploiting such a collection. The consortia envisaged the operating principle of decentralized acquisition, decentralized processing and centralized utilization and access. In reality, they successfully executed a few shared acquisition services viz. Science Elsevier, John Wiley electronic journals, and Kluwer electronic journals, Proquest and EBSCO Services. More areas identified for partnership. Now the IIM Library consortia have their success for partnership.

This above figure shows that how the IIM library consortium will make the present position more convenient, user friendly and fruitful for the future IIM libraries in the country.

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Extreme Situation

Enormous resources, adequate quality, sufficient infrastructure, sufficient budget, minimum risk, easiest access, utmost satisfaction etc.

Desired Situation

Formulation of a strategy, optimal access to information, sufficient financial support, availability of resources, infrastructural facilities, shared risk etc.

Present Situation

Not optimal, lack of strategy, inequality, uncoordinated,unstructured, lack of IT infrastructure, lack of resources, budgetary constraints, light at the end of the tunnel, etc

e-Resources for IIMsABI / INFORM Complete ACM Digital LibraryAsian CERC's Insight CapitalineCRIS INFAC Industry InformationEBSCO DatabaseEmerald Full-textEuromonitor(GMID)IEL Online Science Direct (3 Subject Collections) 

ABI / Inform Complete ABI / Inform is a world-renowned database of full text journals on business, economy and management providing a comprehensive coverage on various micro as well as macroeconomic aspects of various economies of the world. It covers nearly 4,000 journals in business, management and social sciences with around 3000 of them in full text and remaining 1000 at the abstract level with coverage dating back to 1923. Among new sources added to ABI includes EIU Newswire, Going Global Career Guides, 14,000 Dissertations. Publications from world famous publishers like Sage, Kluwer, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Wiley, Emerald, MIT Sloan, Springer, Blackwell, Taylor & Francis etc.

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ACM Digital LibraryThe ACM Digital Library   (DL)  is the most comprehensive collection of full-text articles and bibliographic records in existence today covering the fields of computing and information technology. The full-text database includes the complete collection of ACM's publications, including journals, conference proceedings, magazines, newsletters, and multimedia titles.

CapitalineFrom desktops to Internet and Intranet websites, it delivers the highest quality market data and financial information available on securities, derivatives and commodities traded on Indian stock markets.

CRIS INFAC Industry InformationCRISIL is a global analytical company providing ratings, research, and risk and policy advisory services. It is India's leading ratings agency. They are also the foremost provider of high-end research to the world's largest banks and leading corporations. With

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sustainable competitive advantage arising from our strong brand, unmatched credibility, market leadership across businesses, and large customer base, they deliver analysis, opinions, and solutions that make markets function better.

EBSCO DatabaseEBSCOhost databases and discovery technologies are the most-used, premium online information resources for tens of thousands of institutions worldwide, representing millions of end- users.

Emerald Insight Full-text Emerald publishes the world's widest range of management and library & information services journals, as well as a strong specialist range of engineering, applied science and technology journals. Emerald database allow instant access to the latest research and global thinking. It provides information, ideas and opportunity to gain insight into key management topics. Emerald was established in 1967 by a group of senior academicians formed MCB University Press, a publishing house that focused on

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niche management disciplines including strategy, change management and international marketing.

Euromonitor(GMID)

Established in 1972, Euromonitor International is the world leader in strategy research for consumer markets. Comprehensive international coverage and leading edge innovation make our products an essential resource for companies locally and worldwide.

IEL OnlineIEEE is the world's largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through IEEE's highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.

Science Direct (3 Subject Collections)

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Science Direct is a leading full-text scientific database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and more than 11,000 books. There are currently more than 11 million articles/chapters, a content base that is growing at a rate of almost 0.5 million additions per year. 

B i b l i o g r a p h i c  R e s o ur c e s 

J-Gate Custom Content for Consortia (JCCC)

JCCC@ INDEST-AICTE

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has set-up the "Indian National Digital Library in Engineering Sciences and echnology (INDEST) Consortium" on the recommendation made by the Expert Group appointed by the ministry under the chairmanship of Prof.N.Balakrishnan. The Ministry provides funds required for subscription to electronic resources for (57) institutions including IISc, IITs, NITs, IIMs and a few other centrally-funded Government institutions through the consortium headquarters set-up at the IIT Delhi. Besides, (60)Government or Government-aided engineering colleges and technical departments in universities have joined the Consortium with financial support from the AICTE. Moreover, the INDEST-AICTE Consortium, as an open-ended proposition, welcomes other institutions to join it on their own for sharing benefits it offers in terms of highly discounted rates of subscri339ption and better terms of agreement with the publishers. All electronic resources being subscribed are available from the publisher’s Website. The Consortium has an active mailing list and a Web site hosted at the IIT Delhi.

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ConclusionThe consortium, with its collective strength of participating institutions, has attracted highly discounted rates of subscription with most favorable terms of agreement. Consortia are tools, which will aid in exploiting the features of the e-journals as well as in effecting savings

Reference

Yernagla, R., & Kelkar, P.K. Library Consortia: benefits and models of E-journals Consortia. Retrieved from http://www.isical.ac.in/~serial/consortia/CBSOR-11.pdf

Jambhekar, A., Pandian. P., & Gupta, D.K. Partnership for Success: A case of IIMs libraries' consortia model. Retrieved from http://www.tifr.res.in/~libws/paul-paper1.htm

http://www.paniit.iitd.ac.in/ indest /

Dhiman, Anil. (2012). Manual of Digital Libraries. (vols. 1-2). New Delhi: Ess

Ess Publications. 1046p.

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