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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on September 13, 2012 at 21:29

Dear Sri K. Nagaraja Rao,

Thanks for your post. Actually, what I gathered from your statement is your concern about skyrocketed price increase of Engineering journals (even those published from India & presently being outsourced) while from the title of your post I presumed ( and was intensely interested) that you are proposing for devising a compact list of journals for Indian Engineering Institutions governed by AICTE.

As I personally believe, selection of journals should be made primarily on the basis of their usability and quality. Here I have deliberately used two words (adjectives) USABILITY first and then QUALITY. As I personally believe that usability should be the first and primary criteria. Quality comes as a close second because understandability is an important factor. The courses you are conducting and the range of majority of students' expertise must be at par with the thought contents of the journals otherwise the journals will be just for display purpose. Let me illustrate the matter.

Say, you are subscribing several high quality journals (Journals with high Impact Factors) but the articles are so critical and advanced that they go over the heads of your users!In that case, is there any real necessity to acquire them for your library?

On the other hand if you see that there are certain journals which are quite sought after by your users and if you go through their table of contents and observe that they include articles suitable for your users, those journals should be your first priority as a service provider. May be those journals do not fall in the category of High Quality Journals as I mentioned earlier, but you must realise that they are MOSTLY USABLE.

Incidentally, I had worked for more than a decade and half as Head of the Library in a front line National Biomedical Research Institute with extremely satisfactory budget provision. Besides certain top ranking journals, we used to subscribe virtually all journals published by the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) It was not that all the ASM journals were scientometrically what we call  top ranking in their fields; but the articles published in those journals used to fit to the focus & interest of research in that Institute. And I still believe that it was indeed a just choice!! 

Certainly, we could have subscribed many high cost journals or scientometrically more higher ranked journals as money was never been a constrain !!  Yet we opted for journals which were actually required to do the research.

So in your institute you please see which of the journals you require really.

Now coming to the issue of financial expenditure, just do a cost-benefit analysis or a feasibility study. If you find you have to spend $15000 for 10 journals, just check with your users how many of the articles they really require ANNUALLY. If you find that they require 100 articles per year and if you find through web check-in that on an average an article costs $30/- discuss with your authority that you can do with nearly quarter of the total outlay and I believe that your authority will certainly go with it. So opt for pay per article instead of subscribing the whole issue. in stead, utilise part of the excess amount for web space and upload the articles in that space with suitable password facilities to enable your users to have 24/7 access.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

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Permalink Reply by K. Nagaraja Rao on September 20, 2012 at 22:40

I fully agree with your view of buying articles on the web. Yes it is possible in R&D Divisions where they have the culture of reading and requesting for a particular Journal and or article from a bibliography.

The ground facts of Engineering Libraries are different. AICTE prescribes each Library must procure 6 journals published in India for each discipline. The idea here is to force reading culture among students and faculty. Each Librarian has to produce that list.

I am interested in preparing such a list, which suits the needs and budgets of every private engineering library.Last year every engineering college is expected to subscribe online to IEEE, ASME, ASCE, ASTM, DELNET and J-Gate in addition to prescribed number of National Journals.

When you seriously look for such Indian Journals we don't find them. I request librarians to share their lists.

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Permalink Reply by Siddhartha Shankar Ray on September 21, 2012 at 3:51

Dear Sri K. Nagaraja Rao,

Thanks for your mail and for explaining the situation. It is commendable that the AICTE is trying to enforce reading culture among the students and faculty alike. Frankly speaking it may prove to be quite beneficial for our profession in the future years!

I became so happy to learn about your interest for preparing a list of Indian Engineering Journals. The easiest way is to consult the list of Theses in Library Sciences launched a few weeks ago in the LIS Linc Forum. Try for those with proverbial titles Information Seeking Habits or Referencing patterns of Engineering students/researchers  in .... universities.

Please go through the list of Periodicals which are used by the most of the students/researchers. they are the most sought after periodicals.

In case you have access to ILSA, you will certainly see a fairly good number of papers in this aspect appeared in various Indian Periodicals in the field of Library & Information Sciences. just go through them and you will be able to get an idea about the requisite journals.

Prepare your list based upon their findings.

Since they are published materials, I am confident that you will have solid argument in your favour to establish your claim.

Get the list (prepared by you) checked & approved by peoples belonging to the respective discipline.

Prepare a report and put it before your authority or even send it to the AICTE authority for feedback (if any)

I'd love to see you successful!

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

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