J. K. Vijayakumar

Knowledge, Connections, and Communities: A Special Reference to Indian University Libraries

Most of the Indian University Libraries are accessible not only to the academic and research communities but also to the general public. In this paper, an attempt is made to describe the effects of ICT developments on Indian University Libraries, how much they have been able to catch up with more developed institutions and what the future agenda for connecting knowledge and communities will be. This paper gives an idea about ICT developments in India, ICT applications in Indian University Libraries, and the role of INFLIBNET and future programs.

The role of the document delivery service at an evolving research library in Saudi Arabia

Purpose – This purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the document delivery service according to user perception, and a usage analysis was done to inform collection building and refining. This is especially important in a high-calibre research community, where the usage, interests and research groups and disciplines are still evolving. Design/methodology/approach – To collect the responses of document delivery service users, an online questionnaire was used with 12 multiple-choice questions and two open-ended questions. The questionnaires were sent only to the users of this service, and the responses were collected anonymously. Two surveys were conducted, in 2010 and 2013, with the same questions. The responses are displayed graphically prepared to compare the results. There were 71 responses in 2010 and 95 in 2013. Findings – In both surveys, the majority of users rated the service, staff behaviour, speed, quality, etc. with a high satisfaction level. Document delivery order statistics ...

Connecting the pieces: Using ORCIDs to improve research impact and repositories.

Quantitative data are crucial in the assessment of research impact in the academic world. However, as a young university created in 2009, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) needs to aggregate bibliometrics from researchers coming from diverse origins, not necessarily with the proper affiliations. In this context, the University has launched an institutional repository in September 2012 with the objectives of creating a home for the intellectual outputs of KAUST researchers. Later, the university adopted the first mandated institutional open access policy in the Arab region, effective June 31, 2014. Several projects were then initiated in order to accurately identify the research being done by KAUST authors and bring it into the repository in accordance with the open access policy. Integration with ORCID has been a key element in this process and the best way to ensure data quality for researcher’s scientific contributions. It included the systematic inclusion and creation, if necessary, of ORCID identifiers in the existing repository system, an institutional membership in ORCID, and the creation of dedicated integration tools. In addition and in cooperation with the Office of Research Evaluation, the Library worked at implementing a Current Research Information System (CRIS) as a standardized common resource to monitor KAUST research outputs. We will present our findings about the CRIS implementation, the ORCID API, the repository statistics as well as our approach in conducting the assessment of research impact in terms of usage by the global research community.