The document discusses library portals at top academic institutions. It provides an overview of library portals and their functions, including personalized access to resources like e-journals, databases and reference services. Specifically, it analyzes the portals of the top 5 world universities - MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech and Cambridge. All provide search tools, research support and information about resources and services. While their designs vary slightly, collectively they exemplify modern academic library portals.

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3. 1. OVERVIEW
2. WEB PORTAL
3. FUNCTIONS OF WEB PORTAL
4. LIBRARY PORTAL
5. WHAT IS ACADEMIC LIBRARY
6. TOP FIVE WORLD UNIVERSITIES
7. ACADMIC LIBRARIES PORTAL
8. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
9. CONCLUSION
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4. In the modern digital information environment, a
well define mechanism is needed to organize,
store and access information. A library portal is
highly beneficial and it serves as an integrated
interface to a wide variety of digital resources
and web based library services. Web portals are
also important tools for users to access and utilize
library information services over a particular
environment.
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5. A Web portal can be defined as a Web site that aggregates
an array of content and provides a variety of services
including search engines, directories, news, e-mail and
chat rooms, (Pienaar, 2003).
A variety of useful information into a single, „one-stop‟
web-page, helping the user to avoid being overwhelmed by
„Infoglut‟ or feeling lost on the web” (Looney and Lyman,
2000).
Portals have evolved to provide a customized gateway to
Web information. A high level of personalization and
customization is possible (Melzer 1999; Boye 1999).
The top five search engines are (Google, Yahoo, MSN,
AOL, and Ask.com)
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6. The ideal portal relies on following
functionality areas:
1) Search and navigation
2) Personalization
3) Notification
4) Task management and workflow
5) Collaboration and groupware
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7. A library portal is site where the electronic
information and services available to an
individual members of academicians,
researchers and any other member which are
presented in an accessible, secure, personalized,
customizable and integrated form.
Commonly referred to as simply a portal, it is a
website that offers access to a broad array of
resources and services of libraries such as e-
journals, online databases, Web OPAC, new
additions and any other static information about
library services.
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8.  An academic library is a library that is attached to an
higher education institution which serves two
complementary purposes to support the curriculum, and
to support the research of the university faculty and
students.
 The function of an academic library is to create and
maintain collection in all formats that supports the
curricula and mission its college/university/research
institution.
 Academic libraries also provide bibliographic
instruction, Interlibrary Loan services, circulation
services, reference services, CAS, SDI and research
assistance to students and faculty.
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9. According to QS World University Rankings 2018
following are the top five universities of the world:
1) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT),USA
2) Stanford University, USA
3) Harvard University, USA
4) California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
USA
5) University of Cambridge, UK
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10. Main Page: https://libraries.mit.edu/
1) Search
2) Hours and Locations
3) Borrow and Request
4) Research support
5) About
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12. MAIN PAGE: http://library.stanford.edu/
Key Facets are
1. About
2. Libraries
3. Using the Libraries
4. Collections
5. Research support
6. Ask US
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14. MAIN PAGE: https://library.harvard.edu/
Following are the main facet of the Harvard
University Library:
1) Search and find
2) Research support
3) Libraries and archives
4) About Us
5) Help
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16. Main Page: https://www.library.caltech.edu/
Following are the main areas of the California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) Library USA:
1. About
2. Resources
3. Services
4. Authoring and publishing
5. Tools and technology
6. Caltech research online
7. Archives
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18. Main Page: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/
Key areas are:
1) Visiting the library
2) Research
3) What's on
4) Search and find
5) Collections
6) About
7) Giving
8) Cambridge libraries
9) Contact
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These top five academic institutes library portals
provide maximum information about their resources,
their functionality and their services.
 The said libraries offers users friendly portals to
provide maximum facility to their users.
 The complicated contents having the support of
tutorials so that the users can take maximum help.
 The selected five libraries possess online catalogue to
facilitate their users.

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 The aforementioned library portals catalogue
provides access to e-journals.
 E-journals, E-books and free e-resources are
separately mentioned in the selected library portals.
 E-article indexes listed separately in the e-resources
pages/databases in these libraries.
 These libraries offered a separate Search box on the
home page has a search descriptor.
 The library portals offer the Site map to their recipient.
 All the selected library portals offers the Social
Media for example library blogs, flickers, twitter,
Facebook and YouTube.

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 The said library portals offer library subscribed
databases.
 Union catalogue of theses are also being offered by the
these selected library portals.
 Live reference available „„Ask a Librarian‟‟ also offered
by these library portals.
 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) facility also exist
is these selected portals.
 Multitudes of online tutorial are also offered by these
selected portals.
 Personalization support are also been offered by these
portals.

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 Mission/Vision/Goal information are available in the
said portals.
 About Us/History information available and Contact
information available are also the part and parcel of the
said portals.
 The additional service like the reservation of space,
labs, exhibitions are also offers by these selected
library portals.
 Library floor plan also the highlighting feature of these
selected portals.
 Multitude of orientations for new students are also been
offered by these library portals.

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 The Caltec institute offers two different tabs named
as AUTHORING & PUBLISHING, TOOLS AND
TECHNOLGY as compared to other library portals.
 The portal of MIT and the CALTEC offers the off
line campus access to their users and their portal
clearly depicted this piece of information.
 The university of Cambridge library portal also has a
separate tab of 600 hundred years celebration.
 All library portals are also support the disable
readers.

25. The University of Cambridge, library portal
has the tab of GIVING in this particular tab,
overview about library, friends of library,
make a donation and the donation in the
shape of money for the welfare of the people
can also be included. Library portal has the
tab of “what‟s on” while this tab is not
offered by any other selected library portal.
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26. The role of Academic institutions are not only transmit
the knowledge but their fundamental role is to create the
knowledge. As for as creation of knowledge is concerned
the role of libraries cannot be negated. The world
becomes the global village and the present era is the era
of information explosion. In such a rapid pace
information world it is an open challenge to information
managers to provide user friendly and attractive
interface, offers multitude of resources with different
formats and to develop services in exciting and modern
ways.
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