RBU_JR_LIS_V23_2021-FULL_TEXT-E-Copy

Sl. No
Mode of ILP
No. of
Respondents
(n=50)
1 Presentation by
Publishers 33
2 Through Onsite
Training 29
3 Through Special
ILP 28
%
66
58
56
RBU Journal of library & Information Science, V. 23, 2021
These all e-journals are related to the core areas of the
labs, which were highly useful for their research work.
Table-3 also illustrates the budget details of four labs that
were subscribing to e-journals in addition to consortium
journals. The data in Table-3 reveals that out of four (4)
DRDO labs, DRDE, Gwalior, and DRDL, Hyderabad
shared the first position with rupees one hundred lakhs for
the subscription followed by DESIDOC, Delhi was
spending rupees twenty-five lakhs and DLRL, Hyderabad
was spending rupees twenty lakhs for an additional
subscription.
4 Through Webinar 17 34
5 Presentation by
Librarians 09
6 Any other 00 00
Table-6: Mode of Information Literacy Programme
Discussion
Note: Multiple answers were permitted.
It was found in Table-1 that nearly one-fourth of librarians
(26 per cent) are female who is leading the libraries in
DRDO Laboratories. The data also reveals that Scientists
head 68 per cent of the libraries, and Technical Officer
Cadre heads 32 per cent. "As libraries adapt and transition
to e-journals, another cost element associated with the
subscription budget is likely to come under scrutiny"
(Wakeling, 2007). As rightly pointed by Moorthy and
Pant (2012), "the escalating costs of journals especially
those pertaining to S&T, have always been a bane for
information centres attached to these labs, Subscription
cost of these journals takes away a large chunk of their
limited resources."
The data in Table-2 also reveals that thirty-six (36) labs
have a budget of less than one crore, and 14 labs' budgets
are more than one crore. Further, it is noted that the
variation of the budget having in crores and lakhs purely
depends on the size and nature of the work of the DRDO
labs. As Rosenberg (2005) observes, "a wide range of e-
resources are accessible in many libraries, but generally
libraries have little capacity to maintain the subscription.
However, one of the major problems of inadequate
provision of e-resources is poor funding/building
allocation". It is reasoned that the library consortium
movement is a perplexing cycle that includes the
wholehearted help and coordinated endeavours of the
librarians, their administration, and the publisher.
Table-3 reveals that the lab DRDL subscribes from four
publishers: Elsevier, Springer, Sage, and Taylor & Francis.
18
76
https://lisrbu.wixsite.com/dlis/rbu-journal-of-lis
It is concluded from the data in Fig.1 that the publishers
Elsevier, IEEE, and Wiley have more coverage in the e-
journals consortium than other publishers covered in the
consortium. However, the publishers such as ACS,
Science, and T&F were not available in the consortium.
ACS was discontinued from the year 2012, and Science
and Taylor & Francis from 2015.
“The journal articles mainly bring out the latest
developments in a particular field, and e-journals to library
users can be summed up as instant and easy access, link to
other resources; multimedia capabilities, remote access;
searchability, independent of space and time" (Senthil and
Madhusudhan, 2018). In Table-4, the positive approach
here is that 64 per cent of them affirmed that the usage has
increased. This indicates that most scientific communities
use e-journals either for research or publishing their
research findings in e-journals. The study's findings
(Table-4) disclosed that more than 64 per cent of the
librarians were satisfied with the content. Nevertheless, the
36 per cent should not be ignored since its one-third of the
strength is not satisfying with the content available
through the e-journals consortium. Surprisingly, a
significant percentage of the librarians were also not happy
with the coverage of the e-journals, which has 16 per cent.
Further, it has to be noted that one-fourth of the librarian's
satisfaction level has not increased since the
implementation of e-journals. This is an alarming sign for
the DRDO consortium. The implication is that the
percentage has to be increased by adding more publishers
and e-journals to the consortium (Table-4).
It has been observed from Fig.2 that 94 per cent of labs are
not maintaining the usage statistics of e-journals, which is
a not positive sign towards the implementation of the
DRDO e-journals consortium and its renewal e-journals.
Interestingly, the reason behind not maintaining usage
statistics by the individual labs is that the labs were not
interested in the spent time since implementing lab, i.e.,
DESIDOC has already maintaining usage statistics for all
subscribed journals and sharing it to all labs. At the same
time, the usage pattern and less usage were centrally
monitored by DESIDOC to renew the e-journals
consortium yearly. It is pretty clear from the above
discussion that the individual labs can utilize the time for