Use of Open Access E-resource for Management users
By
Neeti S Karanjkar
Librarian,
D E Society’s Institute of Management Development & Research
Pune-411004
Abstract:
This paper deals with the open access e-resources, the types of e-resources, and a brief about the users of these e-resources. The methodology adopted to make the listing and the actual Open access e-resources listed along with the website and brief information about each e-resource is given. The advantages and disadvantages of e-resources in general are discussed and the paper concludes on what needs to be done to make such listing effective and useful.
Introduction
Libraries came into being from the time mankind started expressing ideas in writing and strived for documented information and knowledge. Modern libraries have evolved from paper-based storehouse of books and journals into distributed network of digitized information and knowledge, now known as digital libraries. Libraries these days have consortia, and use electronic resources and databases so that they can provide better services to the users. Librarianship has shifted from use of printed and manually operated system to world wide access to information. Modern academic library is a conglomeration of printed books and journals as well as electronic resources (e-resources) where both forms of the documents can be stored (or archived), retrieved (or accessed) and delivered (or downloaded) as and when required. The diversified hunt for information and knowledge, the innumerable books and other printed materials together with endless and ever increasing scholarly e-resources makes the traditional management of academic library a difficult task. Now access of information is no longer restricted to what is physically available in a particular library. Information is accessible from a wide variety of globally distributed commercial repositories such as electronic publishers and aggregators with access charge. However, it is also accessible from open access journals, open access archives, few websites and institutional repositories free of charge. Now libraries can enable worldwide access to a never-ending supply of distributed information and knowledge in electronic form that is constantly available, easily updated and convenient to use.
Open access
One of the major barriers for scholars and researchers in universities is the lack of access to the current literature in their subject, much of which may be published in journals that have high annual subscription rates and so are far too expensive for many libraries. The open access movement addresses this barrier by arguing for the “free availability of literature on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself” ( www.soros.org/openaccess/).
E-resources
The library and information services of the 21st century are fast changing. With the rapid development of electronic publishing, libraries are not only acquiring reading materials such as printed books and journals but also arranging for providing access to various learning resources in electronic form. In the new situation, the role of library professionals in collection development and management has become restricted. In fact, they are now playing the new role of access manager of e-resources rather than acquisition manager and custodian of scholarly resources in print form. In academic libraries, the main attraction of the researchers is articles of learned journals and chapters of advanced treatises. Most of the scholarly resources are now available only in electronic form. Most of these electronic journals (e-journals) are now providing a lot of useful linking facilities wherein citations are linked to their full text or at least abstract of cited documents.
Types of electronic information resources
The libraries with their traditional holdings in print format are now being added with electronic information resources in various formats like CD-ROM and DVD-ROM databases, on line data bases, e-books, e-journals and plenty of internet and web resources. The content of these sources varies from bibliographic or factual to full text.
CD-ROM Databases
CD-ROM Databases are increasing day by day in almost all fields due to their many advantages in information storage and retrieval. Majority of publishers of books and journals, on line vendors and various learned societies are bringing out new titles in CD format with powerful retrieval software. Electronic information resources in CD format include abstracting and indexing services, encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, yearbooks, back volumes, standards, patents and many other reference works.
DVD-ROM Databases
The advent of DVD-Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, with its 17 GB of high data storage capacity, has made it possible to include more multimedia elements like video and sound and to integrate many reference sources on single disc. The other features like higher quality of sound and video, higher rate of data transfer, data security etc. are making DVD more viable option to CD-ROM.
Online e-Databases
The recent growth of internet and the popularity and ease in use of web are making libraries to subscribe to online information services. An e-database is an organized collection of information, of a particular subject or multi-disciplinary subject areas; Information within an e-database can be searched and retrieved electronically. There are two types of these they are Full-Text Databases contain the whole content of an article such as citation information, text, illustrations, diagrams and tables and Bibliographic Databases which contain only citation information of an article, such as author name, journal title, publication date and page numbers. Contents include journal articles, newspaper articles, book reviews and conference proceedings.
E-books
An electronic book is the content of the book made available to the reader in electronic form. According to Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, electronic book is “a term used to describe a text analogous to a book that is in digital form to be displayed on the computer screen”. Electronic books, or e-books, are books in computer file format and read on all types of computers, including handheld devices, designed specifically for reading e-books.
E-journal
E-journals or Electronic Journals are gaining more importance with the emergence of internet. The publishing world is undergoing a revolutionary change as more and more publications are becoming WEB centric. Online journals, whose full-text articles are available in the web for viewing and downloading free of charge, called open access journals. Open access to articles can be achieved in two ways- by publishing as article in open access journals and/or depositing the same in open access archives or institutional repositories. The later is often referred to as self archiving. Open archiving or self-archiving initiative is an ambitious effort to free online full-text articles from the clutches of the commercial publishers. The use of these articles is more important to libraries in developing countries such as India as most libraries in this region are facing problems with financial crunch.
Internet as a tool for electronic information resource
The internet is its World Wide Web has given a paradigm shift to information management. The information available on net is increasing rapidly and the task of providing relevant information to patrons is gaining paramount importance in all types of libraries. Most of the reputed publishers, learned and commercial societies are hosting their products on net and also all libraries are sharing their internal and external information resources by means of web pages and Web-OPACs. Due to impact of internet there is swift migration from offline to online, as Web is becoming popular user interface for providing access to remote and frequently updated resources.
The Institute of Management Development and Research (IMDR):
The IMDR caters to management education mainly conducting fulltime courses in Management, International Trade and Human Resource Management with a few other areas like Diplomas in Human Resource Management, Financial Management, International Trade and Masters Diploma in Business Administration etc. The need is felt to have open access e- resource websites listed at a place and have a library portal, so that the faculty and students of this organization can access the same on the intranet.
Methodology
The writer first identified the websites of management organizations and institutions worldwide with the help of Google and then went to these websites and picked up open access e-resources listed under their website. The search was carried out with help of key-words like e-resources, open access e-resources, etc. The searched e-resources described in the following paragraphs with their features.
Open access E-Resources on Management
Gateways
Biz/Ed http://www.bized.co.uk/
This is a Internet service for business and economics students and teachers consisting of a catalogue of websites in field, learning materials, economic, business, finance and demographic datasets, and factual information about leading companies to be used in case studies. Includes online models where students apply business and economic theory to the real world - such as the Virtual Factory, and the Virtual Economy - an online model of the economy based on the Treasury model.
Intute: Business and Management (http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/business/)
Searchable database of business and management internet resources selected by university librarians for students, staff and researchers in higher and further education.
Open J-Gate (http://www.openj-gate.com/)
Open J-Gate is an electronic gateway to global journal literature in open access domain. Launched in 2006, Open J-Gate is the contribution of Informatics (India) Ltd to promote OAI. Open J-Gate provides seamless access to millions of journal articles available online. Open J-Gate is also a database of journal literature, indexed from 6082 open access journals, with links to full text at Publisher sites
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (http://www.doaj.org/)
The result of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, it provides information on open access journals, including some social science journals. This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. It aims to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 4459 journals in the directory. Currently 1711 journals are searchable at article level. As of today 328524 articles are included in the DOAJ service
FindArticles.com (http://findarticles.com/)
Archive of published articles that can be searched for free. Includes access to some journals which provide free full text access. The service covers more general than academic journals but includes a few journals on management and education.
Arab Social Science Research Virtual Library (http://www.assr.org/)
Virtual library aims to serve as a gateway for Arab social scientists and for others studying the Arab world. Provides links to journals, especially focusing on the Middle East. Journals listed either provide complete access, or provide access to abstracts and selected articles.
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries (http://www.knowledgecenter.unr.edu/)
Provides a list and links to free electronic journals.
BLDS list of e-journals (http://www.blds.ids.ac.uk)
Comprehensive list of free internet editions of journals relevant to development studies maintained by the British Library of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Electronic journals and magazines on the Middle East (www.columbia.edu)
Provides a list of journals related to the Middle East, some of which include access to full texts or abstracts of articles.
Electronic Journals Miner (www.goldrush.coalliance.org/)
Provides a list of e-journals and a search facility. The search can be limited to list free publications only.
ELSS (Electronic Society for Social Scientists) (http://www.elsss.org.uk/)
Initiative which aims to create high quality alternatives to high priced journals in economics. One forthcoming journal, with plans to launch more journals. Journals are free to non-commercial institutions in developing countries.
Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies (http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/)
The Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies is a peer-reviewed electronic journal that showcases the original work of graduate students. Taking advantage of online publishing, GJAPS aims to be at once dynamic, interdisciplinary and innovative. GJAPS will publish thought-provoking interdisciplinary articles, reviews, commentary and visual works that engage critical issues, themes and debates related to the Asia-Pacific region and its peoples.
Electronic Journals Library (http://rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/)
Developed by the University Library of Regensburg in co-operation with the University Library of the Technical University of Munich, the service covers academic and scholarly journals, covering all subjects. Full text of some of the journals are available free of charge, others are restricted to member institutes of the initiative. The service also lists journals for which full text is not available, but table of contents and abstracts may be available. The search function allows you to narrow your search to free full text journals.
CrossRef Search Pilot ( listed from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) (www.crossref.org/crossrefsearch.html)
The CrossRef Search project is currently "on hold" with no new publishers being added, and no developments planned at the moment, but it is still in operation. In order to open published scholarly content for the first time to free, full-text interpublisher search ability, a group of 45 of the 1488 participating publishers and societies who collaborate to provide scholars with cross-publisher reference linking. There are approximately 6.5 million items now indexed
Through a special, reciprocal arrangement between Google and CrossRef, Google has indexed the full text of scholarly journal articles on the publishers' websites through a CrossRef gateway. Users may submit searches from CrossRef Search Pilot boxes on participating publishers' sites. Results are returned from Google using the Google search and ranking algorithms, and using the article's DOI whenever possible to link from the search results to the published article.
Repositories
BS Ahmedabad Institutional Knowledge Repository (http://202.131.96.59:8080/dspace/)
This Repository is a collection of Articles Published, Conference Papers presented Journal/Research Papers, Cases...the Intellectual Capital of the Faculty & Research Fellows of ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad
DSpace at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (http://dspace.iimk.ac.in/)
This service facilitates the Institute researchers in self-archiving and long-term preservation of their scholarly publications and provide easy access to these publications world wide and improve impact of their research.
Databases
The OAIster® database (www.oaister.org/)
Millions of digital resources from thousands of contributors
- Available through WorldCat.org at no charge.
- Contains records of digital resources from open-archive collections worldwide.
- More than 23 million records representing digital resources from more than 1,100 contributors.
The records of the open archive digital resources available via OAIster lead to a wide range of materials and include: Digitized (scanned) books and journal articles, Digital text, Audio files (wav, mp3), Video files (mp4, QuickTime) , Photographic images (jpeg, tiff, gif), Data sets (downloadable statistical information), Thesis and research papers
International Monetary Fund (IMF) publications (http://www.imf.org)
Searchable database of IMF publications, including access to full text of documents.
World Bank documents (http://www-wds.worldbank.org/)
Collection of World Bank reports, documents and working papers.
RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) (http://repec.org/)
Database of working papers and journal articles on economics. The website links to IDEAS, the largest bibliographic database on Economics available on the internet.
E-books
eScholarship Editions - Economics and Business ebooks (http://www.escholarship.org/editions)
Small but growing collection of scholarly e-books from the University of California Press in a range of economics and business/management subjects, including comparative economics, historical economics and international business.
Digital book Index (http://www.digitalbookindex)
Intended as a meta-index of major e-book sites. Provides links to more than 145,000 title records from approximately 1,800 commercial and non-commercial publishers, universities, and various private sites. Around 103,000 of these books and documents are available without cost.
Answers.com - Business Topics (www.answers.com)
Excellent resource providing access to several free online publications. Coverage includes: Barron's Dictionaries (Accounting, Banking, Business Terms, Finance and Investment, Insurance, Marketing Terms, Real Estate, etc.), Encyclopedia of Business, Business Plans Handbook, International Directory of Company Histories, FX Converter by OANDA, Company Profiles from Hoovers, Inc., Market Watch company data, Encyclopedia of Small Business, and Encyclopedia of American Industries.
Organizations
Business Link management best practice (www.businesslink.gov.uk)
The DTI's management best practice pages, now housed on the Business Link site, offering 'practical advice for business' designed to help companies improve their business performance.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (www.cipd.co.uk)
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is the professional body for those involved in the management and development of people. The site contains a wealth of information on all aspects of human resources management arranged by subject.
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) (www.informs.org)
The largest professional society for the field of operations research (O.R.). It was established in 1995 with the merger of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) and The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS).
ERIC/AE Full Text Internet Library (http://ericae.net/ftlib.htm)
Links to full-text books, reports, journal articles, newsletter articles and papers on the Internet that address educational measurement, evaluation and learning theory.
All Academic (http://www.allacademic.com/)
Guide to free academic resources online.
ADVANTAGES OF E-RESOURCES
Easy Access: Access e-resource is easier for the users. They can access the desired material within minutes, or even seconds, on their desktops, provided equipment is available. Large collections of material can be searched and retrieved simultaneously and instantly. There is an active dissemination of information by alerting the readers at their desktops about the new e-resource that are accepted into the database. In other words, E-resources allow intelligent full-text retrieval based on past use and interests.
Speed: High speed and efficiency benefits the publishing and distributing electronically.
Authoring and publishing systems can be integrated easily by computer- readable text. Also, electronic transmission, especially in the review process, saves valuable time.
Linkages: Linkages can be enabled by hypertext and hypermedia formats among sections within an electronic resources. E- mail contacts would be easier among users, publishers and suppliers. Users have more creative ways to have their information queries answered.
Costs: The e-resources are published electronically rather than in paper and no new costs are introduced.
Multimedia : Innovative ways of presenting research results can be supported by electronic page layout. Interactive three-dimensional models, motion video and sound are a few possibilities
DISADVANTAGES OF E-RESOURCES
Financial constraints: The infrastructure required displaying, storing or print electronic resources are expensive. Downloading and printing will be a costly affair. This means a net increase in economic and ecological costs and it becomes a relatively expensive way to acquire a single copy.
Social constraints: Electronic interfaces can take a long time to master. Electronic searching, downloading and printing replace the traditional activities of physically browsing, scanning and photocopying. The intricate steps to accomplish the previously simple or habitual tasks might frustrate users. People read up to 25 to 30 percent more slowly on a computer screen than on paper
Technological constraints: The academic community can be divided into “haves” and “have-nots” because of access to equipment and network. The network or connection speed can be too slow. Screen quality of graphics and photos is still primitive when compared to print
OTHER ISSUES:
Stability and storage: The volatility of e-resources makes preservation a major concern. In case of the benefits of access are enhanced, the ability of electronic resources to transmit information through time is not completely confirmed. Offline storage methods suggested are magnetic media, such as tape, hard disks, and floppy disks, and optical media such as CD-ROMs. There are issues of preservation of storage media, hardware and software dependency and dynamic versions of electronic resources that also need to be dealt with.
IPR Issues : There are certain issues like; protection of the intellectual property of the author in order to preserve the originality and integrity of the work; warrant for the attachment of the author and the work in public; protection of the author’s ideal and economic interest and benefits, including publication and reproduction of his/her work. This is usually accomplished through the publishers, who disseminate the work in an appropriate, protected and retraceable manner. Electronic resources presently emphasize information access instead of ownership.
Selection and acquisition: The selection criterion for e–resources resembles the selection of other media. The library selection policies can be applied to electronic resources, there are considerations unique to electronic resources that should be addressed by libraries, such as: standards, effectiveness of the search engine, ability to limit to local holdings (if not full text), and hardware and software compatibility.
Cataloguing: E- resources can be classified according to the ordinary guidelines, such as LC call numbers. Libraries should be alert to emerging standards for cataloguing electronic publications.
Users’ access: Depending on the licensing agreement and local funding, downloading and printing can be provided in libraries as well as at the desktops of the users. Minimum hardware and software requirements are going to progress as technology progresses, but basic entities such as hard drives, colour monitors, external disk drives, printers, security cables, tables and chairs are often inevitable to be equipped onsite. Internet connection and bibliographic linking software are extras to provide value added service.
Training and support for staff and users : With the number of e- resources being published and the variety of different interfaces, more sophisticated searching and retrieving skills are necessary. If library staff is provided with adequate training and support in order to be aware of new development of technology, more flexible and suitable services can then be available for users. The information provider role of libraries remains important but the delivery and type of services might have to adapt to the changing technology and users’ needs.
CONCLUSION
It is said that E-resources can’t replace print formats yet because only a fraction of scholarly materials is available electronically. What is available varies in quality, accessibility and price. But E-resources provide many opportunities and potentials for academic libraries. Out of the advantages and disadvantages of e-resources librarians need to be able to identify and balance the factors that would make e-resources a success or failure in their libraries. Certain bottlenecks still arise with e-resource such as users experience frustration and difficulty in their first efforts to use e-resources if they lack proper infrastructure they may oppose efforts by libraries to replace printed formats by electronic ones. Librarians facing financial pressure identify journal price rise as a significant contributing factor. Library users want the advantages of the digital format, but until archiving issues have been satisfactorily addressed, many librarians consider it necessary to acquire the print format as well specially in case of journals. Developing a common vision of the future of IT can consolidate efforts to tap into the evolving telecommunication infrastructure. There is a general consensus that e-resources would not replace but coexist with the print format.
This was just an attempt to list e-resources. This listing of Open access e-resources would help the organizations which cannot afford to subscribe or purchase expensive databases or e-resources. Lots more need to be done. This listing should be updated from user end and the websites need to be up to date, down loading and storing them invloves copyright and IPR issues. The internet searches need to be systematic and accurate for which subject thesaurus needs to be developed. And such listing on the institutional intranet would help the faculty, researcher and students of academic colleges here with special reference to Management Science.
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