Usage of Commercial and Open Source Digital Resources in Libraries: With Special Reference to Islamic Management Arts & Science Colleges of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

There are many subscribed resources and open source resources utilized by the Students, Research Scholars and Faculty Members in higher educational institutions. Objective –of this study is to determine the Digital resources usage preferences in Arts & Science college libraries of Tamil Nadu, particularly Islamic Management Arts & Science colleges. This article also examines the usage of e-books, e-journals (both subscribed and open source), Library website and abstracting database. It also deals with the status of the colleges which are subscribing to the digital resources. Research methodology. A systematically designed questionnaire was distributed to the selected colleges and received the data for analysis. Quite a few interesting facts have come out. Findings -Accordingly the data reveals that the undergraduate and postgraduate users preferred opens access resources and Google as their search engine for quick access while on the other hand research scholars insisted that commercial resources are of help and have made a recommendation to increase them. In case of faculty they recommend more number of commercial resources for their study, research and teaching purpose. Suggestions were made by the users to improve the infrastructure facility, regular power connection and a speed increase in the high bandwidth internet connections and to conduct seminars/ workshops/ orientation to the users in order to create awareness to increase the both the category of digital resources.