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Electronic Information Sources
Origin and Growth of Electronic Information Resources
Meaning of Electronic Information Resources
Definition of Electronic Information Resources
Characteristics of Electronic Information Resources
Various types of Electronic Information Resources
          E-Journals
                   Characteristics
                              Types of E-Journals
                              Access to E-Journals
          E-Book Electronic
                   PDF
                   E-PUB Format
                   MOBI Format 
          E-Databases
                  Introduction
                  Characteristic of Database
                  Types of Database
                           Bibliographic         
                                     Internal database and associated service         
                                     External database and associated services 
                           Numerical Dalabare 
                           Full Text Database 
                           Factual Database, 
                           Research in Progress Database
                          
          Online Theses and Dissertations
          E-Patents
                  Utility Patents
                  Design Pasent
                  Plant Patent
          E-Standards
                 International
                 National
                 Regional
              Need for standards     
          Blogs
                 Types of Blogs
                          Personal Blogs 
                          Collaborative Blogs or Groups Blogs 
                          Micro - Blogging. 
                          Organizational Blogs
          Internet
          OPAC 
                 Ways to Search
                Web OPAC
          Dictionaries
                 Types of Dictionaries
                         General Dictionary
                         Special Dictionaries
                         
                                                                                                                                                                       

                  Electronic Information Sources             

 The twentieth century was shaped by sweeping changer in information and communication technologies. Information and communication technology (ICT) generally relates to those technologies that are used for accessing, gathering, manipulating and presenting or communicating information. The technologies could include hardware (e.g. computer and other devices); software applications and connectivity (e.g. access to the Informat, local networking infrastructure, video conferencing). It is a dynamic and unending resource that affects all discipline and all spheres of life. Consequently, the research and development community has also undergone tremendous changes during these years, assuming new dimensions influenced by technology-driven applications (Egberongbe, 2011) 

 Libraries have witnessed a great metamorphosis in recent years, both in their collection development and in their services structures. Libraries are now using technology to improve the management of scholarly information and to provide speedy access to scholarly information. with advances in technology, print medium in increasingly giving way to the electronic from of materials (sharma 2009). Tsakonas and papatheodorou (2006), stated that the transition from print to electronic medium apart from resulting in a growth of electronic information, has provided users with new tools and applications for information seeking and retrieval. 


 Origin and Growth of Electronic Information Resources                 

 The early libraries were defined as an institution that managed and preserved the intellectual sources of society in print form and made them available in a systematic manner to the users, who could readily gain access to these resources. Evaluation, growth of internet and e-publishing industries in the field of information and communication technology has given birth to electronic resources. Societies are transforming from information societies into knowledge societies. E-resources play an important role by providing a convenient medium and fast access to a rast range of information. Beginning in the mid 1990s, several publishers started to explore the possibilities of delivering information to libraries and their users in the electronic form. 


 Meaning of Electronic Information Resources                                  

 An electronic resources is a resources which require computer access or any electronic product that delivers a collection of data, be it a text referring to full text bases, electronic journal, image collections, other multimedia products and numerical, graphical or time based, as a commercially available title that has been published with an aim of being marketed and this may be delivered on CD-ROM, on tape, via internet an so on. 

 Electronic information resources are information resources provided in electronic form, audio visual or physical form, which require electronic devices for access, manipulation or reproduction. Electronic resource is an electronic information resource which can be accessed from anywhere, without any barriers. These electronic information resources include various type of electronic documents like E-book, E-Journal, E-databases, scholarly web resource, Patents, etc. 

 An electronic resource is a resource which includes documents in electronic format which can be accessed via internet in a digital library environment. Electronic information resources are those resources which are available in electronic form as E-book, E-Journal, E-newspapers and bibliographic database. E- images, E-Sound and music collection. 


Definition of Electronic Information Resources                                 

 An "Electronic Resource" is defined as any work encoded and made available for access through the use of a computer. It includes electronic data available by 1. remote access and 2. direct access (fixed media). In other words : Remate access (Electronic Resources) refers to the use of EIR via computer networks. Direct access (EIR) refers to the use of electronic resources via carriers (e.g. discs/disks, cassettes, cartridges) designed to be inserted into a computerized device or its auxiliary equipment, AACR 2, (2002). Reitz (2005), defined that EIR are materials consisting of data and/or computer programs encoding for reading and manipulation by a computer by the use of peripheral device directly connected to the computer or remotely via a network such as internet. The category includes software application, electronic text, bibliographic databases etc. Shim et. al. (2001) defined EIR as those resources that uses access electronically via a computing network from inside the library or remote to the library. 

 In present scenario, Electronic Information Resources are becoming more and more important and these are invaluable research tools that complement the print resources in a traditional library setting (Dadzie, 2007). The print resources are being digitized, which has given rise to increases of the availability of E-book, E-journal. These electronic resources are helpfull because of their easy portability and its feature of incorporating more than one resource in a single hand held device. Their other advantages, according to Dadzie (2007), include : access to information that might be restricted to the users due to the geographical limitations, financial constraints, access to more current information and provision of extensive link to additional resources related contents. 


 Characteristics of Electronic Information Resources                        

 Electronic information resources are useful to institutions and individuals to get instant, relevant, comprehensive. information at their finger tips/doorstep keeping theses factors in view, some of the major feature of e-resources are 

 i. Electronic information resource can be accessed around the world without any geographical and time limitations. 

 ii. User can access electronic resources from any remote location to his/her desktop. 

 iii. Many users can use electronic information resources simultaneously. 

 iv. It is easy to search the text. 

 v. Modification, alteration and updating can be made easily. 

 vi. Electronic information resources can be subscribed though consortia or publisher or aggregator etc. 

 vii. Electronic information resources are available in the various files and formats. 

 viii. Electronic information resources can be search, browse, access, download quickly. 

 ix. Linking feature facilitates link with in the documents as well as outside of the documents 

 x. Easily copied, stored and disseminated. 


 Various types of Electronic Information Resources                           

 Electronic Information Resources (EIR) are increasingly important to all aspects and all levels of education and research. With the advent of world wide web, the EIR have flourished in unprecedented way and have become the focus of research and academic activities of institution in recent years. These Electronic Information, Resources (EIR) provide quick and comprehensive access information to the users by using best, easier and user friendly tools and techniques. There are various types of electronic information resources which are available in open access and commercial forms for the users. They are as, 

 E-Journals 

 E-Books

 E-database 

 E- Newspaper 

 E-Magazines 

 E-Thesis & Dissertation 

 E-Patents 

 E-Standards 

 Institution / digital repository 

 Scholarly web resource 

 Blogs 

 Internet 

 OPAC 

 Dictionaries 

 Consortia 


   i. E-Journals                                                                                      

 A journal is a primary source of information and scholarly communication among academic community in the universities. Electronic journals, which are popularly known as e-journals are scholarly journals or intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission. E journals are very much convenient to use. According to meera and Ummer (2010), "The transition from print-on- paper journals to electronic journals is among the most fascinating developments in the information field." 

 According to covi 1996, the "Electronic Journal" is ambiguous and it is not always clear whether the producers of a given title are referring to a distribution format for a print journal, an electronic archive of a print journal or a journal published exclusively in an electronic format. 

 Broadly, E-Journal may be defined as any journal magazine, news-latter etc. Which can be electronically accessed and available over the internet. 


  Characteristics of e-journals  

 The characteristics e-journals are : 

 a. Articles in e-journals are electronically submitted which help in the rapid publication of an issue. 

 b. It gives innovative ways of representing research results and other form of data information, text, motion, sound, hypertext, hypermedia linkages. 

 c. The files or articles are electronically accessed using different technologies such as WWW, gopher, FTP, Telnet etc. 

 d. Ability to link reader comment and evaluation to published articles. 

e. It helps in more efficient dissemination of information, rapid SDI service by libraries through e mail. 

 f. It lower cost per successful match between articles and reader. 


  Types of E-Journals  

# classic e-journals 

 # Parallel e-journals  

# Database model and software model. 

 # CD-ROM Journals. 

 # Full text yourmals. 

 # Electronic only Journals 


 Access to E-Journals 

 * Free Access. 

 * Exclusive Subscriptions 

 * Selective Access. 

 * Remote Access       

                      • User ID and Password       

                      • IP enabled (intranet) -9 


   ii. E-Book Electronic                                                                         

Book is characterized as any book, which can be downloaded and read on a computer, laptop, palm top, mobile etc. Sometimes E-book are the Electronic versions of print Books and it has easy search facility which reader can see visually and it can be saved on a pen drive, CD etc and transferred to CD-ROM. The content is indistinguishable with the exception that there are additional features such as, bookmark and link between issues and solutions. E-books also offers the  convenience of portability since, it can be stored on personal library of E-book, on computer, laptop and on other handheld  gadgets. 

 The electronic book has the same contents as the original or printed book, but there contents are updated frequently with new updations (wikipedia, org). Some of the E-books also have built hyperlinks. These hyperlinks allow, with a single, click; to move quickly and effortlessly to desired location in the book. Additionally, E-books also have bookmarks that permit to move quickly to a particular chapter or subsection. 

 The earliest electronic books were distributed on floppy disk, but in the mid 90's, e-books were distributed on CD-ROMs. With the advent of www e-books are easily available on internet. These e-books are self-contained executable files of HTML, which are completely interactive with the internet. It can contain live links, graphics, search capabilities. JavaScript, embedded video etc. and these books can be protected via password/user ID and more. 

 Three different Format 

 i PDF Format 

 ii. E-PUB Format 

 iii. MOBI Format  


  iii. E-Databases                                                                                   

A Database is basically a collection of information organized in such a way that computer program, can quickly select desired pieces of data (book, google, co.in). It is a regularly updated file of digitized information related to a specific subject of field, consisting of records of uniform format organized of ease and speed of search and retrieval. Web enabled databases are easily accessible from user's desktops through web browser. Database often contain journal articles, or reference to such articles, E-books, references sources, conferences papers etc. 

 Traditional database are organized are organized by fields (a field is a single piece of information), records (record is the one complete set of fields) and files (a file is a collection of records) (webopedia.com). In a new database approach, rather than having separate data files, a pool of related data is shared by multiple application programs. Each application uses a collection of data that is either joined or related in the database. It is therefore, convenient to use, widely available and can be accessed from anywhere by many user at the same time. Research libraries, therefore, spend large amounts of money on these databases to satisfy the teaching, learning and research needs of its users.



  Introduction  

 A database is an organized set of data stored in a computer that can be search automatically. 

 A database is a self describing collection of integrated records.It is self describing because it contains as part of itself a directory or dictionary of its context. 

 It is a collection of records or a file or a collection of files brought together as a single file commonly accessible by a given set of programme. 

 According to John Convey, databases are a collection of records in machine readable form that are made available for searching from remote computer terminals. 

 A database is an organized, integrated and often inter-related collection of computer based data records, files or information. 

 A random assortment of data cannot be referred to a database. Databases may be stored on magnetic tape, optical media such as CD-ROM, DVD ROM, and Hard Disk etc. can be accessed either locally air remotely.



  Characteristic of Database  

The characteristics of a database are as follows 

a. It is an organized, integrated collection of data. 

 b. It can be referred to by all relevant application with relative case and number. So duplication of data can be avoided. 

 c. It is a model of natural relationship of the data in the read-world environment. 

 d. Database enhances data independence by permitting application programme to be incentive to changers in the  database. 

 e. Databases provide facilities for centralized control of accessing and security control functions. 

 The database approach can be employed wherever storage and manipulation of data are required. It is most useful when relationships between data are numerous and complex and information requirements are subject to change. Common examples of databases is : A student database containing enrolment data for all persons currently attending classes. 


  Types of Database  

 a. Bibliographic         

                  i. Internal database and associated service         

                 ii. External database and associated services 

b. Numerical Dalabare 

 c. Full Text Database 

 d. Factual Database, 

 e. Research in Progress Database 


  A. Bibliographic  

 In bibliographic databases the data stored comprises input of bibliographical details of a document for identification, storage and retrival purposes. The bibliographic details to a document may include titles, authors, journal names, volume, issues, place of publications publisher, year of publication, ISBN/ISSN number, classification number book number, location keyword, abstract etc. 

 A bibliographical databases may be a library catalogue or a database of theses, dissertation research papers published in technical journals, conference etc. Bibliographical databases can be divided into two categories  


  i. Internal database and associated service  

 The internal bibliographic databases those created by libraries and information centres of their published holdings such as books, serial, articles in periodicals, proceeding in conferences, these etc. 


  ii. External databases and associated services  

 External bibliographic databases comprise online catalogues such as SCISEARCH. The machine readable counterparts of science citation index, current content, the publication of the institute for scientific information, USA, National Union catalogues of scientific serials, in India (NISCAIR).


  b. Numberical Databases  

 It contains numeric or statistical or survey type data of information to give answer of numberic queries. 


  c. Full Text Databases  

 Full text databases contain the full text of a publication. i.e. provide relevant information directly. E.g. Harvard Business Review (HBP); The New York Time xia Naxis. 


  d. Factual Database  

 Factual database contains directory type data.


  e. Research in Progress Database   

 Contains description of research in progress. 

 Many of the world database are now made accessible to the users by vendors (computer based agencies that arrange access to various world database for a fee). Such vendors include DIALOG SDC etc. 



  iv. Online Theses and Dissertations                                                   

 A thesis or dissertation is a document, submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings. These are known to be the rich and unique source of information, often the only source of research work that does not find its way into various publication channels. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a thesis as "a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written as part of a university degree" (OED). Mariam- Webster Dictionary defines a thesis as "a position or proposition that a person (as a candidate for scholastic honors) advances and offers to maintain by argument "as well as a dissertation  embodying results of original research  and especially substantiating a specific views : especially one written by a candidate for an academic degree".

The UGC Notification (Minimum standards and procedure for award of M.Phil/ Ph.D Degree, Regulation, 2009) dated 1st June 2009. mandates submission of electronic version of these and dissertation by the researcher in universities with an aim to facilitate open access to Indian theses and dissertation to the Academic community world. wide. Online availability of electronic theses through centrally maintained digital repositories, not only, ensure easy access and archiving of Indian Doctorial Theses but aill also help in raising the standard and quality of research. This would overcome serious problem of duplication of research and Poor quality from the "poor visibility" and the "unseen" factor in research output. As per the regulation, the responsibility of hosting maintaining and making the digital repository of India Electronic theses and Dissertation (called "shodhgang" accessible to all institution and universities  is assigned to the INFLIBNET centre. 

 Earlier, University quality was linked to its library. But now university quality is linked with the digital library  of theses and Dissertation, which are easily available over the internet. The opportunity to participate in creating and disserminating ETD could attract top candidates from anywhere and it will raise the standards for higher study. 

  v. E-Patents                                                                                         

Patent is defined as a means for protecting the physical embodiments of certain classes of new and useful inventions (wikipedia.org). Patents are the broadest form of intellectual property protection, encompassing not only the precise machine or process invented, but also variant machines or processes that may employ the underlying concept of the invention (Jeffrey, 2006). Patent provides protection to the owner for his invention, generally for 20 years. 

 Patent protection for invention cannot be commercially made, used, distributed or sold without the owner's consent. usually, patent rights are enforced in a court, which provide facilities to hold the authority to stop patent infringement. Conversely, a court can also declare a patent invalid upon a successful challenge by third party. 

 The owner of a patent has the right to decide about who may or may not use the invention. Owner may give permission or license to other parties to use inventions on mutually agreed terms or may also sell the right to other parties, who will then become a new owner of the patent. But once a patent expires, the invention will enter the public domain. It means the owner connot hold exclusive right to the invention for longer time. 

 There are three kinds of patent according to USA patent office  

  i. Utility Patents  

 Utility patents are employed to protect functional attributes of an invention, It may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture or composition of matter or any new and useful improvement there of. utility patent can stop others from making, using, selling and importing the invention. A utility patent providers protection for 20 years from the date that the patent application is filed. 

  ii. Design Pasent   

Design patents are granted to protect ornamental aspects of an invention. In other words, a design patent is granted for product designs. The criteria for obtaining design patent are same as utility patents, but it is issued for only 14 years from the date from the date that the patent application is filed. 

  iii. Plant Patent   

 May be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant (USPTO, 2015). This patant may be granted to cultivating different types of plants i.e. mutants or hybrid plants etc. This patent protects the owner for 20 years from the date of the application. 

Once a patent is granted, the owner may enforce it by bringing a patent infringement action (lawsuit) against anyone who makes, uses, or sells the invention without the patent owner's permission (coursehero.com). An invention is not patentable if it is a discovery, a scientific theory or mathematical method, an aesthetic creation, literary, dramatic or artistic work, a scheme or method for performing a mental acts playing a game or doing business the presentation of information or a computer program. In addition, it is not possible to get a patent for plant variety, a method of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy or a method of diagnosis. 

  vi. E-Standards                                                                                   

 A standards is a document that provides  requirements, specifications, guidelines or characteristics. that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose. standards are based on industrial, scientific and consumer experience and they cover everything from consumer product to energy, environment, water and many more. Standards are regularly reviewed to keep pace with advance technologies. 

  There are three kinds of standards  

i International 

 ii. Regional. 

 iii. National 


  Need for standards  

 Standards are used every day, in all aspects of our daily lives i.e. in communications, media, healthcare, food, transport, construction, furniture, energy etc. 

  vii. Blogs                                                                                              

 Blogs are defined as A Website that contains on online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the writer. A Blogs is a very very simple webpage where entries or posts are organized in reverse chronological  order. It is a unique form of online publishing that creates opportunities for producing knowledge, sharing research, building social networks, developing professionally, or documenting personal growth. Usually, blogs are open to public and these are free to create. Most of the blogs are interactive in nature and there are allowing visitors to leave comments and event message each other via widgets on the blogs. This interactivity make them distinguish from other static websites. 

  Types of Blogs  

 There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written. 

 i. Personal Blogs 

 ii. Collaborative Blogs or Groups Blogs 

 iii. Micro - Blogging. 

 iv. Organizational Blogs 


  viii. Internet                                                                                         

 Internet is generally defined as a global network connecting millions and millions of computer. Internet works as a means to send and receive all kinds of information such as text, graphics, voice, video and computer program to other computers at any time and any where in the world via dedicated routers and servers. This allows the users to browse the information available at an unimaginable number of sites across the world. Some of them give conditional access i.e. the user has to be a member to be able to access the information. But most of them allow free access. 

 The growth of internet usage has shown a phenomental growth. According to internet live stats, statistics obtained from www internet worldstatio.com, an internet site devoted to continuously monitering internet usage in most countries shows that as of August 12, 2016 there was an estimated 3432809100 internet users worldwide. The largest internet users are from china, followed by united states and India. 

 The Internet (called ARPANET) was established by us, Department of defense in 1960, in collaboration with military research (wikipedia.org). Later, universities  and other US institutions were connected to it. In the early 1980s, TCP and IP, the current versions of the core internet protocol were introduced across the network. As a result, most traditional communications, media, including telephony, radio, letters, books, journal articles and newspapers are being reshaped by internet, giving birth to new services such as Email, E-Paper, websites, E-books, E-Journals and print publishing.

Internet is considered as a great electronic information resource by the research community and also as a great tool by library and information centers to supplement their information support offered to the user community. Users of one particular country can browse information resources through internet from anywhere in the globe. A part from the faster access to information resources, it provides instant access to millions of information resources, which includes e-journals, e-book, databases, video films, sound recording and wide variety of other sources. 

  ix. OPAC                                                                                             

OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) is an online database of materials held by a library or group of libraries. Users can search a library catalog to locate books and other materials available at a library. In other word, OPAC is an electronic version of the card catalogue. It is also called as a gateway to library's collection. The ALA glossary of library and information science (1983), define OPAC as a 'computer based and supported library catalogue'. It is designed to be accessible via terminals, so that library users may directly and effectively search and retrieve bibliographic  records without the assistance of a human intermediary (Fabunmi and Asubiojo, 2013). OPAC is an online catalogue of the library collection which includes prints and non prints resources such as books, journals. magazines, news paper, audio-visuals, government publications, theses and dissertations, etc. Therefore, by using the library OPAC, users can access bibliographical records of a variety of available information resources independently. 

 Traditionally, OPAC was concerned with searching for and retrieving bibliographic records of information resources instead of full-text of the content of resources. It has made searching and  retrieval of bibliographic records of materials easier and faster. 

 It acts as an information retrieval tool for the user. It has revolutionized way of searching bibliographic information by providing search capabilities such as keyword searching, boolean searching, truncation, proximity searching, and item identity number searching These were not possible in the traditional catalogue.

  Ways to search  

There are a number of way to search an item. 

 i. Author Search  

ii. Title Search 

 iii. Subject Search  

iv. Advanced search 


  Web OPAC  

 Web OPAC is provided on the web with the help of internet. Users can access it from anywhere at any time. It is a program which facilitates the users to access the OPAC through their search, instead of searching through card catalogue. In addition, users can request for the information which is not available in library. 

  x. Dictionaries                                                                                     

 The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dictionary as a " book dealing with the individual words of a language (or certain specified class of them) so as to set forth their orhography, pronunciation, signification and use, their synonyms, derivation and history, or at least some of these facts, for convenience of reference the words are arranged in some stated order, now in most languages alphabetical and in larger dictioneries the information given in illustrated by quotations from literature (OED.2017). 

  Types of Dictionaries  

  A. General Dictionary  

It contains words from all spheres of human activities and all areas of the life of the speakers of the language. The general dictionaries are of two types :           

i.Academic or Normative Dictionary         

ii. Referential or overall Descriptive Dictionary 


  B. Special Dictionaries  

 The special dictionaries may be classed into the following groups on the basis of the nature of their word list

 i. Covering special geographical regions, social dialects, or special spheyes of human activity. 

 ii. These are in formal shape 

 iii. Special language units and others 

 iv. Bilingual and Multilingual dictionaries 














                                                                     Notes                                                                









                                                                     Question                                                           

1. E-Journal articles can be identified with the help of 
A. Digital Journal Identifier               B. Journal Source Identifier 
C. Journal Article Identifier               D. Digital Object Identifier
Ans: 

2. “Shodhganga” is a repository of 
A. E – Resources       B. E – Thesis 
C. E – Journals          D. E – Books
Ans: 

3. BUBL link is a 
A. Data base                    B. OPAC 
C. Subject gate way         D. Portal
Ans: 

4. An E-book which does not require an internet connection to access its contents is 
A. Web book                                       B. Palm book 
C. Electronic Ink e-book                    D. Digital book
Ans: 

5. E-document is the abbreviation of which term? 
A. English-documents                B. Economics-documents 
C. Engineering-documents         D. Electronic-documents
Ans: 

6. How communication of information is done from E-documents? 
A. Self reading                              B. Reading by a reader 
C. By communication media        D. By electronic media
Ans: 

7. What is the meaning of E-documents? 
A. All documents other than printed                                       B. Non-paper documents 
C. In electronic form such as Cassettes, CD-ROMs, etc.       D. Audio-visual tools
Ans: 

8. Assertion (A): Electronic access to information is becoming easy day by day. 
Reason (R): The printed materials pouring out of the world presses do not show any decline. 
A. Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not a correct explanation of (A) 
B. (A) is true but (R) is false 
C. (A) is false but (R) is true 
D. Both (A) and (R) are false
Ans: 

9. Who enunciated the concept of Technological Gatekeepers? 
A. Dewey                       B T. J. Allen 
C. Ranganathan             D. Calvin Moores
Ans: 

10. What is bulletin board service? 
A. It is closely related to E-mail system              B. It has only a single large mail box 
C. It is a communication system                          D. All the above
Ans: 

11. Which one of the following is a Bulletin Board Service on Internet? 
A. Picaso             B. Google talk 
C. Blog                D. Oovoo
Ans: 

12.  Assertion (A): Electronic access to information is becoming easy day by day. 
Reason (R): The printed materials pouring out of the world presses do not show any decline. 
A. Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not a correct explanation of (A). 
B. (A) is true but (R) is false. 
C. (A) is false but (R) is true. 
D. Both (A) and (R) are false.
Ans:

13.