E-RESOURCES

INTRODUCTION:

Electronic resources are the online tools that index, abstract or provide electronic access to

articles, books dissertations and other types of content.

The Books, Journals, articles, News papers, atlases, maps, databases, bibliographic databases and

whatever documents, or information that are available online in digitized form are called E-

Resources.

Electronic resources are defined as “online information resources including bibliographic

databases, electronic reference books, search engines for full-text collection, digital collections

of data and datasets.”

They can be classified into two major areas-

1) Online e-resources

2) Offline e-resources

1) ONLINE E-RESOURCES:

• e-books

• e-journals

• e-mail

• e-library

• e-forum

• e-learning

• e-shops

• e-dictionaries

• search engines

• meta search engines

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 • Websites etc.

2) OFFLINE E-RESOURCES

• CD-ROM based e-resources

• Offline e-books

• Offline e-dictionaries

• MS-Office applications( PowerPoint Presentations)

• Training Software

• E-prompter

• PDF Converter

• E-resources on mobile devices

CHARACTERISTICS OF E-RESOURCES:

1) E-resources are potentially huge in number.

2) The resources are mostly unorganized.

3) E-resources do not require physical space for storage.

4) Constraints that are in physical libraries are barred in e-resources.

5) Time, space and cost constraints are not a problem in search strategies of e-resources.

6) Hyperlinks lead users quickly to the required information sources.

7) Accessing the back issues is possible in case of e-resources.

ADVANTAGES OF E-RESOURCES:

1) E-resources can be used efficiently and it saves a lot of time.

2) Reduces lot of paper work.

3) The information provided is up to date and of good quality.

4) Provides facility to search across a wide range of journal articles and other links.

5) E-resources can be easily transferred from one place to another.

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DISADVANTAGES OF E-RESOURCES:

1) The most common complaint found regarding e-resources is the discomfort of reading

from the screen or poor graphic quality.

2) Access to e-resources requires knowledge of computer and internet skills.

3) The rate of information download depends on the availability of internet speed.

Although, initially e-resources were extensively used in scientific field, later on the use

of e-resources also became one of the most important ways of accessing information of any field.

The availability of e-resources although is beneficial to the user to access and retrieve variety of

information but it is very important to evaluate these resources and to select the most useful one.

Evaluating resources is a crucial step in the research process.

Whether in print or in electronic form, resources should be scrutinized and evaluated using a

standard set of criteria such as the ones listed below:

1) Coverage

2) Scope

3) Currency

4) Audience & Purpose

5) Authority

6) Objectivity

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CONCLUSION:

E-resources with the help of its online and offline forms are available in the various all branches.

Some of these e-resources are available free of cost while some require subscription. Due to the

tremendous availability of e-resources, it becomes essential for the user to evaluate these

resources before using them. Librarians conserve collections for the present and the future,

acquiring, maintaining, and preserving items physically and making them available. Librarians

with the decreasing library budget, limited staff and resources must get trained and re-trained to

adapt to new challenges in providing information to users using e-resources.

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REFERENCES:

1) Agarwal, V. ( 2006). Virtual Collections in Digital Libraries. New Delhi: Rajat

Publications.

2) Miller, Ruth. (2000). Electronic Resources and Academic Libraries:1980-2000 A

Historical Perspective. Library Trends. 48(4):645-670.

3) http://www.lectureinfo.sekars.net

4) Tenopir, Carol. (2003) Use and Users of Electronic Library Resources

www.clir.org/pubs/reports

5) www.nla.gov.au

6) http://en.wikipedia.org

7) http://www.vl-site.org/sciences/index.html

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