Keywords: E-journals; Digital Library; Electronic Resources; Online Databases.

Transcription

1 Use of E-journals by Faculty Members at Jayawant Library in Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering, Tathawade, Pune: Case Study By Prabhat Ranjan*; Shakuntala P. Gudi**, Yogesh B. Daphal*** Abstract: E-journals are among most extensively used electronic resources and its impact on academic community is much important. There are several managerial and technical prospects that affect usability of e-journals by faculty members in an academic institution. A questionnaire survey was conducted to explore how use of it was being made by faculty members in Jayawant Library of Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering, Tathawade, Pune. Total 167 questionnaires were distributed to the users in which 105 filled-in questionnaires received were found useful for analysis. The survey reveals that average users are using e-journals from merely 2.5 years; however frequency of use is rather significant. Users often use work place for access of e-journals. Slow speed of the Internet proved the most significant problem while access. Most of the users welcome for training and orientation programs for effective use of e-journals. Thus it can be concluded that faculty members are interested in e-journals and desire to make its use effective. Keywords: E-journals; Digital Library; Electronic Resources; Online Databases. 1. Introduction: Electronic resources are being used since two decades significantly, but its impact on information community has become very crucial now. Electronic journals (also referred as e-journals) are important electronic publications which are aimed to make aware about current developments in a specified field of knowledge. Online publishing of such a document reduce geographical and time barriers and it becomes available to the concerned community easily. E-journals are important for Research & Development works (R&D), education and knowledge updating. Most of the institutions of higher education subscribe e-journals to keep their faculty members and students aware about new developments in their respective fields. E-journals mobilize innovative and inventive thinking and work in an institution. At present there are norms to subscribe journals and e-journals in a technical institution imposed by apex body of the technical education which change with time to time. This shows importance of e-journals in education. It is essential to study the implications of e-journals as these can measure the actual impetus of these sources on information community. New technologies bring some convenience to the users, but implementation of new technologies often attracts some problems that should be resolved. A librarian always makes a comprehensive balance between different resources and maximizes the use of library budgets in technical and managerial constraints. Use of e-journals is seen in this context, as use of e-journals is competed by other resources in the library and electronic access sometimes poses some problems also. The present study tries to find out the trends in access and uses of e-journals along with the difficulty faced by the faculty members so that the libraries can balance their collection and modify their services to meet the needs of its users. 1.1 Advantages of E-journals: Some of the features that make the e-journals an important source of information can be cumulated in following ways: 1. Fast publishing of e-journals makes awareness to new developments in a domain more dynamically. 2. Searching of information in e-journals is easy as compared to print journals. Hyper linking to related sources makes them sometimes more reliable to further studies. 3. E-journals save physical space to store. It also solves the problems of shelving, missing issues, missing pages and tearing of pages etc. 4. Consortia, open access journals, e-databases approach minimizes costs of subscription and also avails a large number of sources to the users. 5. Access to multiple users simultaneously is possible in the case of e-journals. 6. Multimedia presentations are possible in case of e-journals. *Librarian, Jayawant Library, Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering, Tathawade, Pune **Sr. Librarian, Jayawant Library, Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering, Tathawade, Pune *** Librarian, Shri Padmani Jain Arts & Commerce College, Pabal, Pune

2 1.2 Limitations of E-journals: 1. Reading on the computer screens is less reliable than print media. It is problematic to read particularly over four or five hours on computer screen at a single time. 2. Copyright issues prevent archiving of previous issues in a permanent memory like hard disk. Upgrading of information to new formats also encompasses problems. Online archiving on the publishers websites is not a permanent solution. 3. It needs an infrastructure to avail information which requires special equipments in the library. 4. Readers should be computer literate for electronic access of e-journals. 1.3 About Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering: Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering is one of the premier engineering colleges in Pune. Affiliated to University of Pune and accredited by National Board of accreditation (NBA) has more than two thousand students, 170 faculty members, eight subject branches, research centers and good infrastructure. Jayawant Library is the central library of the college. The library has collections of more than thirty thousand books, CDs/DVDs, 104 print journals, 308 bound volumes of journals, 12 subscribed online databases and many more. Presently, the college has been awarded as Best Professional College by University of Pune. 2. Objectives: 1. To determine the use of e-journals in the library. 2. To know the different facets of access and use of e-journals to improve library services. 3. To find out the problems while making search of the e-journals. 4. To observe the impact of e-journals in comparison to prints. 3. Literature Review: Due to technological developments in Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) information publishing has become very fast. Use of electronic resources is being increased day by day. Library frameworks are also being changed to cope up with the needs of the users. Electronic journals are a major component of electronic publishing and it is used by largest number of people that use e-resources (1, 6, 7, 8). Library professionals need to make studies to provide better services to its users. Although there are several studies on this issue and results varies due to composition of users and services provided by libraries, but similarities have also been drawn in respect of increasing use of e-journals and need of orientation programs to make effective search of the same. Mulla (2011) observes that all the faculty members use electronic resources in HKBK Engineering College, Bangalore and use of these resources benefits them with current information. He also observed that information available is always adequate in electronic resources (5). Lenares (1999) has made his study when e-journals were less familiar to the users. He analyzed the reason of not using the e-journals and found that unawareness to the e-journals available was the biggest reason to not make use of it. Only 46% faculty was using e-journals in 1998 which increased to 61% in 1999 (4). This scenario has been changed up to now and e-journals are familiar to almost all the concerned persons. The percentage of exposure of e-journals to the users was 100% in the case of faculty members in HKBK College, Bangalore (5). This percentage was more than eighty in case of research scholars in Faculty of Science and Faculty of Engineering in Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (3). Shahmohammadi (2012) found that electronic journals were being used extensively and there were no difference conspicuous based on years of experience and qualification. He envisaged that faculty members were interested in electronic journals as their use leads to better research and enhances scholarly communication (7). Study by Usha Rani (2010) reveals that most of the faculty members access e-journals from university and departmental library and computer centre. Nearly 85 percent faculty members are in this category (9). This result is supported by the results obtained by Eqbal, M. (3). Research works are the main purpose to use the e-journals is drawn in both the studies. The other reasons to use the e-journals are to update the knowledge. Limited access and slow speed are the main problems faced by the users while using E- journals (9)). Need of training is required by significant number of users (3).

3 4. Research Methodology: The survey method was applied to make the study. A questionnaire comprised of eleven questions was designed to investigate the different aspects of e-journals use among faculty members. These questionnaires were distributed to faculty members in print and were collected. Some questionnaires were returned shortly after the distribution. The rest were collected after an interval of two days. All the data were input into MS-Excel and analysis was made deriving facts from the same. The faculty members from different branches were selected as responders. Total 167 questionnaires were distributed in different departments in the college in which 105 questionnaires found useful for analysis. Data analysis was carried on using online software. 5. Composition of Respondents: The survey was conducted in the college among its faculty members. The distribution of respondents is as follows. Gender Teaching Experience Designation Department Male Female >15 Asst Assoc. Prof. Prof. Prof. Sum E & Tc Computer IT Mechanical Civil Engg. Sci MCA MBA Total The respondents are nearly equal in respect of their genders. Majority of respondents have up to ten years teaching experience. Two third of respondents have either 0-5 years of experience or 6-10 years of experience. Most of the faculty members are assistant professor. The number of such persons is nearly ninety percent. Only ten percent respondents are professor or associate professor. 6. Data Analysis: 6.1 Familiarity with E-journals: Department Yes No Total E & Tc 12 (100%) 0 12 Computer 18 (100%) 0 18 IT 14 (100%) 0 14 Mechanical 23 (100%) 0 23 Civil 10 (90.9%) 1 (9.1%) 11 Engg. Sci 11 (100%) 0 11 MCA 8 (100%) 0 8 MBA 7 (100%) 0 7 Total 103 (99.04%) 1 (0.96%) 104 All the faculty members except one faculty member expressed that they are familiar with e-journals. One person skipped this question. This show almost all the faculty members are exposed with e-journals in the library.

4 6.2 Duration for using E-journals: Department 1 Year 2 Years 5 Years 10 ears >10 Years Total E & Tc 1 (8.3%) 3 (25.0%) 8 (66.7%) Computer 3 (16.7%) 4 (22.2%) 9 (50.0%) 1 (5.6%) 1 (5.6%) 18 IT 3 (21.4%) 7 (50.0%) 4 (28.6%) Mechanical 2 (9.1%) 8 (36.4%) 7 (31.8%) 3 (13.6%) 2 (9.1%) 22 Civil 1 (11.1%) 5 (55.5%) 3 (33.3%) Engg. Sci 4 (36.4%) 5 (45.5%) 2 (18.2%) MCA 4 (50.0%) 3 (37.5%) 1 (12.5%) MBA 4 (57.1%) 2 (28.6%) 1 (14.3%) Total 22 (21.8%) 37 (36.6%) 35 (34.6%) 4 (4.0%) 3 (3.0%) 101 The largest number of users expressed that they are using e-journals from two years. Nearly equal number of users expressed that they are using e-journals from five years. Compositely the number of both type of faculty members are more than sixty percent. More than twenty percent members were using e-journals since one year merely. Only seven percent of members either use it from ten years or more than ten years. Dept. 5.3 Purpose to use E-journals: Getting Information Writing papers Research Works To know Latest trends in Industry Other Reasons Total E & Tc 8 (66.7%) 7 (58.3%) 8 (66.7%) 4 (33.3%) 1 (8.3%) 12 Computer 10 (55.6%) 13 (72.2%) 12 (66.7%) 7 (38.9%) 2 (11.1%) 18 IT 8 (57.1%) 8 (57.1%) 5 (35.7%) 3 (21.4%) 3 (21.4%) 14 Mechanical 14 (60.9%) 8 (34.8%) 14 (60.9%) 15 (65.2%) 1 (4.3%) 23 Civil 8 (80.0%) 5 (50.0%) 6 (60.0%) 0 3 (30.0%) 10 Engg. Sci 7 (58.3%) 2 (16.7%) 7 (58.3%) 4 (33.3%) 0 12 MCA 6 (75.0%) 3 (37.5%) 2 (25.0%) 5 (67.5%) 0 8 MBA 3 (42.8%) 3 (42.8%) 3 (42.8%) 3 (42.8%) 0 7 Total 64 (61.5%) 49 (47.1%) 55 (52.9%) 41 (39.4%) 10 (9.6%) 104 The purpose of largest number of faculty members to use e-journals was to get information. More than sixty percent members used e-journals for this purpose. Research works were the second dominant reasons to access and use the e-journals. More than half of faculty members have needs to search e-journals for research purposes. Writing papers and to know latest trends in industry are the other reasons to search e-journals. More than forty percent of members had this type of need for each purpose. Other reasons to access the e-journals are related to class works, seminars and project works etc. 5.4 Frequency of Using E-journals: Department Daily 2-3 times in week Weekly Fortnightly When needed Total E & Tc 0 2 (16.7%) 3 (25.0%) 1 (8.3%) 6 (50.0%) 12 Computer 1 (5.6%) 3 (16.7%) 8 (44.8%) 0 6 (33.3%) 18 IT 0 6 (42.9%) 5 (35.7%) 1 (7.1%) 2 (14.3%) 14 Mechanical 0 4 (17.1%) 5 (21.7%) 1 (4.3%) 13 (56.5%) 23 Civil (20.0%) 2 (20.0%) 6 (60.0%) 10 Engg. Sci 1 (8.3%) 2 (16.6%) 6 (50.0%) 0 3 (25.0%) 12 MCA 0 1 (12.5%) 2 (25.0%) 0 5 (62.5%) 8 MBA (42.9%) 1 (14.3%) 3 (42.9%) 7 Total 02 (1.9%) 18 (17.3%) 34 (32.7%) 06 (5.7%) 44 (42.3%) 104

5 Nearly half of faculty members use e-journals when need arises to them. One third of members use e-journals weekly. Only two percent of people use it daily. It seems that people use e-journals one, two or three times in a week. 5.5 Preference between Abstracts and Full-text documents: Department Abstracts Full-text Total E & Tc 5 (45.5%) 6 (54.5%) 11 Computer 4 (23.5%) 13 (76.5%) 17 IT 4 (30.8%) 9 (69.2%) 13 Mechanical 6 (27.3%) 16 (72.7%) 22 Civil 8 (80.0%) 2 (20.0%) 10 Engg. Sci 4 (33.3%) 8 (66.7%) 12 MCA 3 (42.9%) 4 (57.1%) 7 MBA 1 (14.3%) %) 7 Total 35 (35.4%) 64 (64.6%) 99 Almost two third of faculty members use full-text preferably. The rest prefer to see abstracts. 5.6 Location of Access of E-journals: Department Work Place Digital Library Computer Centre Home Other Total E & Tc 10 (83.3%) 6 (50.0%) 0 2 (16.7%) 0 12 Computer 16 (88.9%) 8 (44.5%) 0 1 (5.6%) 1 (5.6%) 18 IT 12 (85.7%) 4 (28.6%) 0 4 (28.6%) 0 14 Mechanical 13 (56.5%) 11 (47.8%) 1 (4.3%) 4 (17.4%) 3 (13.0%) 23 Civil 9 (90.0%) 3 (30.0%) 1 (10.0%) 2 (20.0%) 0 10 Engg. Sci 5 (41.7%) 5 (41.7%) 1 (8.3%) 3 (25.0%) 0 12 MCA 7 (87.5%) 2 (25.0%) 1 (12.5%) 5 (62.5%) 0 08 MBA 3 (42.9%) 2 (28.6%) 0 3 (42.9%) 0 07 Total 75 (72.1%) 41 (39.4%) 4 (3.8%) 24 (23.0%) 4 (3.8%) 104 Work place is the favourite place to use e-journals by faculty members as disclosed by the study. More than seventy percent people use work place for accessing e-journals. Digital Library of the college is the second place of accessing e-journals and its number also reaches to two-fifth of total population. Some of faculty members access the e-journals from their home. Computer centre of the college is used by negligible number of faculty persons for this need. 5.7 Strength of E-journals in comparison to Print Journals: Department Easily Available Less expensive Fast publishing Easy in searching Any other Total E & Tc 10 (83.3%) 3 (25.0%) 1 (8.3%) 9 (75.0%) 0 12 Computer 17 (94.4%) 4 (22.2%) 2 (11.1%) 13 (72.2%) 0 18 IT 10 (71.4%) 2 (14.3%) 2 (14.3%) 10 (71.4%) 1 (7.1%) 14 Mechanical 14 (60.9%) 10 (43.5%) 6 (26.1%) 15 (65.2%) 1 (4.3%) 23 Civil 8 (80.0%) (60.0%) 0 10 Engg. Sci 9 (75.0%) 1 (8.3%) 2 (16.7%) 2 (16.7%) 0 12 MCA 6 (75.0%) 2 (25.0%) 1 (12.5%) 5 (62.5%) 0 8 MBA 2 (28.6%) 3 (42.9%) 0 4 (57.1%) 0 7 Total 76 (73.0%) 25 (24.0%) 14 (13.5%) 64 (61.5%) 2 (1.9%) 104

6 Easy availability of e-journals and easy search of it are the reasons to use it in comparison to prints & 61.5 percent of people respectively prefer e-journals for these reasons. Less expensively and fast publishing are the minor reasons to use e-journals at the place of print journals. Department 5.8 Problems while Accessing E-journals: Slow Internet Speed Getting less relevant documents Less number of Internet terminals Need troubleshooting while access Any other Total E & Tc 8 (66.7%) 3 (25.0%) 3 (25.0) %) 12 Computer 4 (26.7%) 3 (20.0%) 4 (26.7%) 2 (13.3%) 5 (33.3%) 15 IT 5 (41.7%) 2 (33.3%) 1 (8.3%) 1 (8.3%) 4 (33.3%) 12 Mechanical 9 (40.9%) 10 (45.5%) 4 (18.2%) 4 (18.2%) 2 (9.1%) 22 Civil 5 (55.5%) 4 (44.4%) 1 (11.1%) 2 (22.2%) 0 9 Engg. Sci 5 (41.7%) 6 (50.0%) 4 (33.3%) 1 (8.3%) 0 12 MCA 4 (50.0%) 2 (25.0%) 0 3 (37.5%) 1 (12.5%) 8 MBA 5 (71.4%) 2 (28.6%) 0 1 (14.3%) 0 7 Total 45 (46.4%) 32 (32.9%) 17 (17.5%) 14 (14.4%) 14 (14.4%) 97 Slow Internet speed is the most problematic to the users. Almost half of the persons get annoyed of this problem. Getting less number of relevant documents is the other problem faced by the users. Nearly one third of people get this problem. Less number of Internet terminals in the college poses difficulty to 17.5 percent of faculty members percent persons need trouble-shooting while accessing the e-journals. Limited users subscriptions of databases and less number of e-journals in the databases subscribed in the library are also the other difficulty to the users. 5.9 Preferred Databases by Faculty in the Jayawant Library: Dept. IEL ASME ASC E ACM Spring er Link Science Direct J-Gate (E) J-Gate (M) EBSC O ASTM Total Respon ded E & Tc Computer IT Mech Civil Engg. Sci MCA MBA Total IEL is the most searched database in the library. More than half persons use this database according to result of this survey. Springer Link is the second online database used by faculty members. Approximately forty percent people use this database. Science Direct and ACM are used by nearly one third of users. ASME is a major database used by Mechanical Engineering Faculty. Approximately eighty percent of such faculty use ASME database. J-Gate (Management & Social Sciences) is used by none of the users as reported by this survey. ASTM is also least used database. EBSCO and J-Gate (Engineering) is also less used databases.

7 5.10 Requirement of Training Programs (as per users view): Department Yes No Total E & Tc 9 (75.0%) 3 (25.0%) 12 Computer 9 (50.0%) 9 (50.0%) 18 IT 8 (61.5%) 5 (38.5%) 13 Mechanical 11 (50.0%) 11 (50.0%) 22 Civil 7 (70.0%) 3 (30.0%) 10 Engg. Sci 10 (90.9%) 1 (9.1%) 11 MCA 7 (87.5%) 1 (12.5%) 8 MBA 4 (57.1%) 3 (42.9%) 7 Total 65 (64.4%) 36 (35.6%) 101 Approximately two third (64.6percent) of users need training programs to improve their skills to search e-journals. However it does not mean that they are not aware of accessing e-journals Satisfaction with Digital Library Infrastructure: Department Fully Partially No Total E & Tc 6 (50.0%) 6 (50.0%) 0 12 Computer 10 (62.5%) 6 (37.5%) 0 16 IT 9 (64.3%) 5 (35.7%) 0 14 Mechanical 9 (39.1%) 13 (56.5%) 1 (4.3%) 23 Civil 5 (50.0%) 5 (50.0%) 0 10 Engg. Sci 3 (25.0%) 9 (75.0%) 0 12 MCA 5 (62.5%) 3 (37.5%) 0 8 MBA 5 (71.4%) 2 (28.6%) 0 7 Total 52 (51.0%) 49 (48.0%) 1 (1.0%) 102 Half (51.0 percent) of the faculty members are fully satisfied with the library infrastructure to e-journals and half of them (48.0 percent) are partially satisfied with infrastructure. 1 percent of users are unsatisfied with the library infrastructure. 7. Findings: On the above analysis of questionnaires received, the major findings are enlisted below: 1. The faculty members are using e-journals from limited span of time. Most of the people are familiar with it from two to five years. 2. Most of the faculty members in the college use e-journals upon their need. However a large number of persons use it weekly. 3. Getting information and research works are two main purposes to use the e-journals. Experienced faculty member use e-journals primarily for research works. 4. Largest number of people access e-journals from their work place. 5. Full-text documents are searched primarily by more number of users. 6. IEL database is used by largest number of people. 7. Digital Library infrastructure is partially or fully satisfactory to the users. 8. Conclusion: E-journals are familiar to most of the faculty members in the RSCOE library. It is being used by them from few years only, but periodicity to use it is predictably good. Slow Internet speed and getting less number of relevant documents are the prime problems to use the e-journals. Subscription with limited user access to the databases is also noticed from the users. E-journals prospects are significant to the users.

8 References & Bibliography: 1. Babu, K.S.; Sarada, B. & Ramaiah, C.K. (2010), Use of Internet Resources in the S.V. University Digital Library, DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology, Vol. 30(1), January 2010, pp Electronic dissertations library, available on the Internet at (downloaded at , 12:27 p.m. IST) 3. Eqbal, M. (2007), Use of electronic journals by the research scholars of Faculty of Science and Faculty of Engineering, A.M.U., Aligarh: a comparative study, NACLIN, November 20-23, Lenares, D. (1999), Faculty use of electronic journals at research institutions, ACRL 9 th National Conference, held at Detroit, Michigan on April 8-11, Mulla, K.R. (2011), Use of electronic resources by faculty members in HKBK College of Engineering, A survey, Library Philosophy and Practice Available at downloaded at :16 a.m. 6. Parameshwar, S.; Patil, D.B. (2009), Use of the Internet by faculty and research scholars at Gulberga University Library, Library Philosophy and Practice, June 2009, pp Shahmohammadi, N. (2012), Online electronic journals use among university academic faculty members of Islamic Azad University, Karaz Branch, Asian Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences, 1(1), March 2012, pp S 8. Sharma, A.K. & Singh, S.P. (2005), Reading habits of faculty members in natural sciences: a case study of University of Delhi, Annals of Library & Information Studies, Vol. 52(4), 2005, pp Usha Rani, K. (2010), Use patterns of electronic journals by faculty members in K.L. University Library: a study, available at downloaded : 17 p.m. Appendix 1: List of Online databases subscribed in RSCOE Jayawant Library: (The last two databases do not include e-journals in it) 1. IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL) 2. American Society of Mechanical Engineers E-Journals Package (ASME) 3. American Society of Civil Engineers E-Journals Package (ASCE) 4. Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library (ACM) 5. Springer Link (Engineering Collection) 6. Elsevier s Science Direct (Engineering + Computer Science) 7. J-Gate (Engineering & Technology) 8. J-Gate (Management & Social Sciences) 9. Business Source Elite E-journal Collection (EBSCO) 10. ASTM Digital Library 11. ISO JTC 1 (ISO standards for Information Technology) 12. Mc Graw Hill s Access Engineering Abbreviations Used: E & Tc: Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering Engg. Sc: Engineering Science (First Year) IT: Information Technology Mech. : Mechanical engineering (Rest abbreviations used are in standard format)