The document discusses the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Library Consortium. It defines a consortium as groups coming together to achieve a combined objective requiring cooperation and shared resources. The IIM Library Consortium was formed to allow the six IIM institutions to share collections and services. Key issues addressed by the consortium include selecting a coordinating agency, identifying funding sources, negotiating with publishers, and ensuring access to resources. The consortium has been successful in providing shared access to databases and journals.

1. Submitted by
Kalpita K. Potawad
M.L.I.Sc
2012-2013

2. Definition of Consortia
A Consortium could be described as a group of organizations who
come together to fulfill a combined objective that usefully requires
co-operation and the sharing of resources and need to have a clear
mutual goal in order to ensure their success. The aim should be to
deliver “more than the sum of the individual parts”. A library
Consortium formation can be local, regional, state, national and
inter institutional level.
Need for library consortium
The consortium is needed for libraries because of:
1. Information explosion
2. Diversity of user needs
3. Financial crunch
4. Impossibility of self-sufficiency
Issues related to library consortium
Various factors to be taken for an effective functioning of a
successful consortium. The major issues of consortia approaches
are
 Selecting a coordinating agency to deal on behalf of the entire
group of participants and Executing and monitoring the work.
 Sources of funding to meet the subscription cost
 Identifying and negotiating the potential publishers / vendors
or aggregators to provide Access under consortia purchase.
 Source of funding to meet the subscription cost
 Legal issues involved in contracts and usage of material
within the consortia.
 Identification of libraries interested in participating and
agreeing on common terms and conditions.
 Identifying the necessary infrastructure from electronic access
to resources
 Issues related to backup and archival of database
 Documentation and training to staff.
 Designing and launching a library consortium should be long
run
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3. INTRODUCTION
The voluminous growth of published documents in the recent past,
increasing cost of information resources, technological
advancements that offer newer methods of information processing,
retrieval and dissemination are some of the factors which have
made partnership a necessity. Building partnership is currently a
way of business to leverage the resources in order to provide more
effective services. Partnership allows to gain competitive advantage
by pooling the resources. Because of mutual interests and
complementary skills, partnership brings better solutions.
Partnership goals and the plan must be shared by all participating
organizations. The partnership must also be aligned with the
missions and visions of all participating organizations. Resources
must be identified to accomplish the plan, and the plan must be
frequently reviewed and updated as new information becomes
available. The professional relationship among the partners must be
based on mutual respect and an interest in participation in a
win/win manner. A successful partnership may take years to
develop to the point that all participants possess the trust needed to
share.
Need of resource sharing was realized by IIM Libraries. Besides
entering into the interlibrary loan practice, IIM Libraries also
thought seriously of resource sharing in many other areas such as
cooperative acquisition, cooperative processing and decentralized
utilization. The concept of IIM Consortium has been floated a few
years back. IIM Consortium is becoming a reality. The two areas
were identified for partnership viz., (a) developing the collection on
shared basis, and (b) developing the services for exploiting such
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4. collection. IIM Library consortium has in the last one year
successfully executed a few shared acquisition services viz., Science
Direct of Elsevier, John Wiley electronic journals and Kluwer
electronic journals, Proquest and EBSCO services. More areas are
identified for partnership.
IIM History
Indian Institutes of Management have been set up by the
Government of India as Institutes of higher learning to help improve
management systems in the country. Together they cover widest
range of activities, setting standard of performance in everything
they do. This family comprises six institutions as centers of
excellence. They are Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
(IIMA, 1961), Indian Institute of management Calcutta (IIMC 1961),
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB, 1972), Indian
Institute of Management Lucknow (IIML, 1984), Indian Institute of
Management Kozhikode (IIMK, 1996) and Indian Institute of
Management Indore (IIMI, 1996).
Each institute is an autonomous body registered as an independent
society in respective state. State governments have played an
important role in the formation and functioning of these
institutions.
IIM’s Library Consortia-Indian Institute of Management
IIM Library consortia is a Digital Library network system based on
internet technology to provide the IIM community (faculty, students
and staff) an online web enabled access to the information
resources available in all the IIMs without any barriers of time and
distance. It will be a simple, efficient and cost effective system. The
basic operating principle of this system is decentralized acquisition,
decentralized processing and centralized utilization.
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5. IIM’s Library Consortia Members.
1. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA),
http://www.iimahd.ernet.in
2. Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB),
http://www.iimb.ernet.in/
3. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMCAL),
http://www.iimcal.ac.in
4. Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIMI),
http://www.iimidr.ac.in
5. Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK),
http://www.iimk.ac.in
6. Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIML),
http://www.iiml.ac.in
IIMs Library Consortia Members
IIMA IIML
IIMB IIMK
IIMCAL IIMI
Activities
All the Institutes conduct Postgraduate Programs in Management
Programme, Long and Short duration Management Development
Programmes, Faculty Development, Research and provide
consulting support. The first four conduct doctoral programme also
known as Fellow Program in Management. Some of them offer
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6. Interactive Distance Learning Programmes. Besides, they offer
individually a wide range of other sharply focused set of activities by
establishing various specialized centers.
IIM LIBRARY CONSORTIA
Indian Institutes of Management are premier national
business management education set up by the legislation of
Government of India. The major objective of the Institutes is to train
young graduates to become professional managers. To achieve the
objective each IIM set up libraries to support teaching, learning,
research and other consultancy activities of the institutes, now all
of them are fully modernized. The concept of IIM Library
Consortium has been floated a few years back, when the IIMs
Libraries felt to interact on the possible sharing of their subscribed
digital resources, and a pilot study was conducted to identify the
currently subscribed digital resources among the IIMs.
Subsequently, the IIMs Directors, in a meeting held at IIMK during
August 2001 approved the formation of the „consortia‟ and
encouraged the libraries to actively participate for mutual benefit.
Accordingly, the libraries jointly identified the consolidated
electronic resources, which will be of great relevance to the IIM
community and invited the major publishers/vendors of databases,
journals and other value added service providers. Naturally the
published/vendors enthusiastically responded to the invitation,
even they invitation; even they made their presentation along with
their competitive offers for the consortia. In some cases they offered
at drastically reduced price-as much as 40-45 percent discounts,
provided all IIMs subscribe to the same resources, viz.
ABI/INFORM-full text, Business sources Premier, Gale Products,
Global Marketing Information Database, etc; and other resources,
viz., EBSCO-BSE, EconLit-Ovid, CAPITALINE, INDIA INFORMER,
etc. were priced in a rational way.
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7. Therefore, being a closed proportion, IIM Consortia identified two
areas for partnership viz. developing the collection on shared basis,
and developing the services exploiting such a collection. The
consortia envisaged the operating principle of decentralized
acquisition, decentralized processing and centralized utilization and
access. In reality, they successfully executed a few shared
acquisition services viz. Science Elsevier, John Wiley electronic
journals, and Kluwer electronic journals, Proquest and EBSCO
Services. More areas identified for partnership. Now the IIM Library
consortia have their success for partnership.
Present Situation
Not optimal, lack of strategy, inequality, uncoordinated,unstructured, lack of IT
infrastructure, lack of resources, budgetary constraints, light at the end of the tunnel, etc
Desired Situation
Formulation of a strategy, optimal access to information, sufficient financial
support, availability of resources, infrastructural facilities, shared risk etc.
Extreme Situation
Enormous resources, adequate quality, sufficient infrastructure, sufficient budget, minimum
risk, easiest access, utmost satisfaction etc.
This above figure shows that how the IIM library consortium will
make the present position more convenient, user friendly and
fruitful for the future IIM libraries in the country.
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8. e-Resources for IIMs
ABI / INFORM Complete
ACM Digital Library
Asian CERC's Insight
Capitaline
CRIS INFAC Industry Information
EBSCO Database
Emerald Full-text
Euromonitor(GMID)
IEL Online
Science Direct (3 Subject Collections)
ABI / Inform Complete
ABI / Inform is a world-renowned database of full text journals on
business, economy and management providing a comprehensive
coverage on various micro as well as macroeconomic aspects of
various economies of the world. It covers nearly 4,000 journals in
business, management and social sciences with around 3000 of
them in full text and remaining 1000 at the abstract level with
coverage dating back to 1923. Among new sources added to ABI
includes EIU Newswire, Going Global Career Guides, 14,000
Dissertations. Publications from world famous publishers like Sage,
Kluwer, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Wiley, Emerald, MIT
Sloan, Springer, Blackwell, Taylor & Francis etc.
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9. ACM Digital Library
The ACM Digital Library (DL) is the most comprehensive collection of
full-text articles and bibliographic records in existence today
covering the fields of computing and information technology. The
full-text database includes the complete collection of ACM's
publications, including journals, conference proceedings,
magazines, newsletters, and multimedia titles.
Capitaline
From desktops to Internet and Intranet websites, it delivers the
highest quality market data and financial information available on
securities, derivatives and commodities traded on Indian stock
markets.
CRIS INFAC Industry Information
CRISIL is a global analytical company providing ratings, research,
and risk and policy advisory services. It is India's leading ratings
agency. They are also the foremost provider of high-end research to
the world's largest banks and leading corporations. With
sustainable competitive advantage arising from our strong brand,
unmatched credibility, market leadership across businesses, and
large customer base, they deliver analysis, opinions, and solutions
that make markets function better.
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10. EBSCO Database
EBSCOhost databases and discovery technologies are the most-
used, premium online information resources for tens of thousands
of institutions worldwide, representing millions of end- users.
Emerald Insight Full-text
Emerald publishes the world's widest range of management and
library & information services journals, as well as a strong
specialist range of engineering, applied science and technology
journals. Emerald database allow instant access to the latest
research and global thinking. It provides information, ideas and
opportunity to gain insight into key management topics. Emerald
was established in 1967 by a group of senior academicians formed
MCB University Press, a publishing house that focused on niche
management disciplines including strategy, change management
and international marketing.
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11. Euromonitor(GMID)
Established in 1972, Euromonitor International is the world leader
in strategy research for consumer markets. Comprehensive
international coverage and leading edge innovation make our
products an essential resource for companies locally and worldwide.
IEL Online
IEEE is the world's largest professional association dedicated to
advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of
humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community
through IEEE's highly cited publications, conferences, technology
standards, and professional and educational activities.
Science Direct (3 Subject Collections)
Science Direct is a leading full-text scientific database offering
journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-
reviewed journals and more than 11,000 books. There are currently
more than 11 million articles/chapters, a content base that is
growing at a rate of almost 0.5 million additions per year.
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12. B i b l i o g r a p h i c R e s o ur c e s
J-Gate Custom Content for Consortia (JCCC)
JCCC@ INDEST-AICTE
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has set-up the
"Indian National Digital Library in Engineering Sciences and echnology
(INDEST) Consortium" on the recommendation made by the Expert
Group appointed by the ministry under the chairmanship of
Prof.N.Balakrishnan. The Ministry provides funds required for
subscription to electronic resources for (57) institutions including IISc,
IITs, NITs, IIMs and a few other centrally-funded Government
institutions through the consortium headquarters set-up at the IIT
Delhi. Besides, (60)Government or Government-aided engineering
colleges and technical departments in universities have joined the
Consortium with financial support from the AICTE. Moreover, the
INDEST-AICTE Consortium, as an open-ended proposition, welcomes
other institutions to join it on their own for sharing benefits it offers in
terms of highly discounted rates of subscri339ption and better terms
of agreement with the publishers. All electronic resources being
subscribed are available from the publisher‟s Website. The Consortium
has an active mailing list and a Web site hosted at the IIT Delhi.
Conclusion
The consortium, with its collective strength of participating
institutions, has attracted highly discounted rates of subscription with
most favorable terms of agreement. Consortia are tools, which will aid
in exploiting the features of the e-journals as well as in effecting
savings
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13. Reference
Yernagla, R., & Kelkar, P.K. Library Consortia: benefits and models of E-
journals Consortia. Retrieved from
http://www.isical.ac.in/~serial/consortia/CBSOR-11.pdf
Jambhekar, A., Pandian. P., & Gupta, D.K. Partnership for Success: A case of
IIMs libraries' consortia model. Retrieved from
http://www.tifr.res.in/~libws/paul-paper1.htm
http://www.paniit.iitd.ac.in/indest/
Dhiman, Anil. (2012). Manual of Digital Libraries. (vols. 1-2). New Delhi: Ess
Ess Publications. 1046p.
http://www.iimahd.ernet.in
http://www.iimb.ernet.in/
http://www.iimcal.ac.in
http://www.iimidr.ac.in
http://www.iimk.ac.in
http://www.iiml.ac.in
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