Content Management for Digital Delivery of Agricultural Information: Redefining need of libraries in the context of digitization of theses and research reports

摘要

Universities and research institutes in the field of agriculture in India have felt the need for the development of digital databases of highly valuable documents such as theses, dissertations, research reports, package of practices, etc. and taken up projects to fulfill it. Agricultural universities and institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have made attempts to develop digital libraries by converting these documents. Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) has developed a database of theses and dissertations. The Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) also has done some digitization work. The University has made an academic regulation insisting the researchers to submit theses in digital format along with print copy. The researhers have accepted the new system for theses submission and also for information retrieval. Users prefer digital medium because of several additional benefits. The retrieval techniques provided in the database seemed to be an important criterion for accepting and using the database. But, these activities have witnessed with some drawbacks also. A follow up study was also conducted in KAU and IISR. This paper tries to evaluate the digitization programme and highlights major merits and demerits and forward suggestions for digital delivery of agricultural research information. Findings of the study have also been provided