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Unit 7: Academic Libraries

of India is the same as that of academic libraries the world over; however, Indian libraries must Notes
provide maximum information with limited resources.

University Grants Commission (UGC)

UGC, established by an act of parliament in 1956, coordinates and monitors the higher education
system in India and provides grants to the universities and colleges. Two hundred ninety four
universities/institutions in the country are directly under the purview of UGC. It also advises
the Union and State Governments on measures to university education. It frames rules and
regulations for overall teaching and research at higher education. As a result, it also looks after
the academic libraries, i.e., sets various standards for library education, library staff, library
services, etc. A number of committees have been set up by the UGC for the support of higher
education in general and the library services in academic libraries in particular. UGC has also
set up three information centres covering different disciplines—the National Centre for Science
Information (NCSI) at Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, SNDT Women’s University Mumbai,
and National Social Science Information Centre at M.S. University at Baroda, to provide the
document delivery services to students, teachers, and researchers.

Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET)

The University Grants Commission has set up an autonomous Inter-University Centre in 1991
called INFLIBNET. It is involved in modernizing university libraries in India and connects them
through a nation-wide high-speed data network. It promotes automation of libraries, develops
standards, creates union catalogues of serials, theses, books, monographs and non-book materials;
provides access to bibliographic information sources; creates database of projects, institutions,
specialists; provides training, etc. Almost all academic libraries, especially university libraries,
are members of INFLIBNET. It has also developed library automation software called SOUL
(Software for University Libraries) and has distributed the same free of cost to its member
libraries.

Other Networks

Besides INFLIBNET, a number of other national networks and various library networks have
also been developed including NICNET (National Informatic Center’s network), INDONET,
ERNET (Education and Research Network), CALIBNET (Calcutta Library Network), DELNET
(Developing Library Network), etc. ADINET is associated with INFLIBNET, DELNET with NIC
and MALIBNET with CFTRI. A number of educational institutions are members of such networks.
These networks, especially DELNET (which has 752 member libraries including 742 from India
and 10 from outside), are engaged in compiling union catalogues, creating various databases of
experts, providing training to library staff, ILL, online facilities, reference service, assistance in
retrospective conversion, etc.

Library Consortia

Due to a financial crunch and the rising costs of journals, many Indian university and college
libraries cannot subscribe to all the required journals and databases. To overcome this problem,
libraries are forming consortia. Some special libraries and organizations like the Indian Institute
of Astrophysics (IIA) Library, Inter-university Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)
Library, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) Library, Physical Research Laboratory
(PRL) Library, Raman Research Institute (RRI) Library, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) Library, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Department of Atomic Energy, etc.,
have established consortia to share electronic access to journal literature. NISCAIR (formed by

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