For more then three centuries journal played a central role in the creation and transmission of knowledge, especially in the field of Science and Technology we hardly imagine without the scholarly journal. Now a days it is changing it’s shape, media, users and representation remarkably but the basic substance of a journal remains the same—to publish at regular interval the most recent communication notes queries and essays in order to enhance and expand the interchange and sharing the knowledge. But now a days the paper journal have faced a huge criticism because of peer- review process, increasing cost, lack of selectivity and long publication delay. To over come these problem journals are now available in electronic form and electronic media.

There is no standard definition of electronic journal. E-journal sometimes described as "virtual journal" or " paperless journal" or " online journal" etc. Consider first the definition of journal, according to ALA Glossary " a journal is a periodical especially one containing scholarly article and/or disseminating current information on reseach and development in a particular subject field." If this task is done by electronic media then it may call e-journal. If the content of a journal are produced and stored only in electronic form than it is called e-journal. When the content of a journal produced and stored and scanned in a database and then retrieved though on line then same thing is called "on-line" journal. We may define e-journal in this angle that those journal which published and circulate through electronic media. Some specialist define e-journal as any serial, produced published and distributed nationally and internationally via electronic network such as BITNET, INTERNET.

Devid Pullinger and Brian Schakel wrote in 1990 that an e-journal is " one whose text input may be entered directly by file transfer from a computer or by other transfer mechanism in a machine readable form whose editorial processing is facilitated by a computer and whose articles are thus made available in electronic form to readers".

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT :

Vannevar Bush first described the "E-Journal" in 1967 as a part of MEMAX proposal. Before that, as per UNESCO report published 1960 the first e-journal was created in the form of a project named " to test networking computers as a means of improving scientific communications." As a result of this project the first e-journal produced in 1980 in the name of MENTAL WORKLOAD. In 1976 the New Jersey Institute of Technology came out with the first proto-type E-journal CHIMO—a weekly read only newsletter. PAPERFAIRE was an unreferred e-journal published by EIES (Electronic Information Exchange System). Most of the e-journal came into the picture in 90’s decade, popular of them are PSYCOLOQUE edited by Stevan Harnad in 1989. E-JOURNAL published since 1991. By 1992 there was OJCCI (Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials), it was the first peer-reviewed science journal with graphics and completely searchable full text.

Probably Sondak and Schwarz were first phulished the electronic form of the scholarly journal. At present WWW and Internet help accelerated the activities of e-journal. According to Woodword and McKnight(1995) there are three steps of e-journal like ONLINE, CDROM, NETworked journal. Online journal is available through online hosts like DIALOG, BRS etc. CDROM journal is usually full text of individual or collected journals of various subjects. Networked e-journal is based on mailing list- software server computing application including ‘gopher’ and ‘www’. The other way of dissemination of research paper is now available by electronic page lay out. Hypertext and hypermedia formats enable linkages among sections within an article and among articles within the journals and other electronic resources.

E-journal does the entire communication from authoring and submitting through referring and editing to publishing via computer. The various participants are communicated through a central main framed machine. The users accessed the system either through JANET (Joint Academic Network) or PSTN(Public Switched Telephone Network). Users can move different related articles at the same time using hypertext links and a ‘pop-up’ windows facilities. Which provides instant access to the bibliographical details of reference without leaving the text. By using CDROM drive, a high resolution(300 dpi) A4 screen and a laser printer a publisher earn a more profit without increase the price. At least total 219 biochemical journal may digitally scanned and stored only in a single CDROM. Now a days e-journal arises based on LISTSERV software. In this system a central computer holds a list of subscribers. When a new issue is available the system send a content page and abstracts via e-mail. If the subscriber then request for that article through e-mail article then automatically delivered by the software.

An electronic journal provides following advantages—

1.A higher rate of acceptance of article.

2.Increased speed in peer-reviewed and publication process.

3. Possible more acceptance of articles by editors.

4. Lower production and delivery costs.

5. Use of sophisticated searching strategies.

6. Distribution and correspondence not limited by time and geographical boundary.

Paper journal satisfied our need for a longtime and till it providing its service to the people. But e-journal access is a new worldwide trend in information society. People enjoyed because of its instant satisfaction of being able to search and retr5ieve article to their desktop. Many organization offering to access through gateway system like by browsing or keyword etc. Some organization provides pay-per-view option. King(1991) predicts that by the year2006 we will see a dramatic change in information society. He also feels that print media will continue to exits but will play a different role.

Ann Okerson(1991) also stated that if present trends continues through 1995 the likely result would be bibliographic confusion and chaos for utilities libraries and scholars. And at the end of the century the market for paper and e-journal will be devided equally.

Though e-journal gives a lot of facilities and it is time saver and least cost yet there are some problems. Till now it is not fully accepted by the scholar society as a pure substitute of printing media. Also they raise some questions about copyright, licensing etc. They raised some questions about if a library subscribes the e-journal do they get only current issues or he have to right to have backrun? Or he should have to pay for that? They raised another question about copyright, i.e., anyone can easily download or manipulate the article which may against the author as well as the publishers interest. Can it be avoidable? The most vital challenges to the librarian are that as anyone can get any kind of information through online or Internet ,then, do it any requirement for a library ? These are all burning issues and challenges to today’s librarian as well as the future library personnel.

On the basis of full text e-journal of ‘American Chemical Society’ we may conclude that it can not replace the printed journal. It has to crossed a long way to compete the paper journal in developing countries like India due to a huge obstacle of socio economic political problems. Also some scholar says that e-journal is a searching tool not a reading tool. At last we can say that libraries in no part of the world can afford to ignore these electronic source. Emergence of these new source has resulted into a change in traditional library. These include collection development, acquisition, cataloguing, users instruction etc. It is inevitable that in the next few years special libraries will be obliged to subscribe e-journal and other e-publishing.

1. CHAN,(Liza).Electronic Journals and Academic Libraries. LIBRARY HiTECH.17(1).1999.10-16p.
2. COLLINS,(Mauri P.) and BERGE,(Zane L.). IPCT Journal : a case study of the electronic journal on the internet. JASIS.45(10).1994.771-776p.
3. KENT(Allen) and others ed. Encyclopeadia of Library and Information Science. Vol. 26. NewYork: Marcel Dekker Inc. 1979. 424-427p.
4. KLING (Rob) and McKIM (Geoffren). Scholarly Communication and the Continuum of Electronic Publishing. JASIS. 50(10). 1999. 890-906p.
5. McKNIGT (Cliff). Electronic Journal Past Present… and Future. ASLIB PROCEDINGS. 45(1). 1999. 7-10P.
6. MEKEY (Sharon Cline). Accessing Electronic Journal. THE MAGAZINE OF ELCTRONIC RESEARCH AND RESOURCES DATABASE. 22(2). 1999. 17-23p.
7. NAVALANI(K), SATIJA (M.P.) ed. Library Information Service. Jaipur : RBSA Pub.1996.45-48p.
8. PULLINGER(David) and BRAIN(Schakel). Blend-3: The Electronic Journal Research. Technical Report Paper 79. British Library Research and Development Department.1990.
9. RUTSTEIN (Joel S.), DEMILLER (Anna L.) and FUSELER (E.A.). Ownership versus Access: Shifting perspective for Libraries. ADVANCES IN LIBRARIANSHIP.Vol.17. San Diego: Academic Press.1993. 33-59p.
10. YOUNG(Heartsill)ed. ALA GLOSSARY OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE. Chicago. ALA.1983.125p.

Classification is one of the most important and basic methods of organization of universe of knowledge. It involves the analysis and description of the contents of documents. To make a systematic and helpful order to the universe of subject, there need some certain attributes or characteristics. These attributes help to process of dividing or grouping of concepts or facets. In classificatory language such a concept or facet formed by the application of a single train of characteristics is termed as "CATEGORY". Basically a classificationist starts from the conceptual level and tries to find out some facets and then move into terminological level.

Ranganathan has termed the characteristics as "parameter". As the universe of subject is multidimensional, many parameters are required to identify the multidimensional nature of the subject. For example the universe of literary works, the characteristics ‘language’ ‘form’ ‘period’ etc. are helpful to derive a specific literary work. In enumerative classification the number of dimensions of a subject is the number of characteristics used in arriving at it. While in faceted classification the number of dimensions of an isolate idea is used to form a new subject with the basic subject.

The term "category" is defined in many ways by different library professionals. According to Whildhack ‘category is synonym to point of view according to which a subject can be divided’. D.J.Foskett told that ‘category’ is similar to ‘facet’ and explained as ‘faced analysis’ consists in an analysis of subject in its entirely into a certain number of facets or categories of things. B.C. Vickery explained it as ‘conceptual categories’ which have a high degree of general and wide area application developed in the intellectual level and utilize it to interrogate some kind of knowledge. Ranganathan used it in a specialized sense. He said that each facet of subject and each division of a facet is considered as one and only one of five fundamental categories i.e. PERSONALITY, MATTER, ENERGY, SPACE,TIME.

It is very hard task to find out who systematically used this concept of categories. Probably Aristotle first used the term ‘category’ to denote ten classes of being—(1) substance (2)quality (3)quantity (4) relation (5) place (6) time (7) position (8) possession (9) activities (10) objects.

Immanuel Kant revised Aristotle’s categories and based them on the forms of judgement in the following manner—

1. Quantity: unity, plurality, and universality.
2. Quality : reality, negation, limitation
3. Relation: substantiality, causality.
4. Modality: possibility, actuality and necessity.

Dahlberg used four categories in his schedule following Aristotle, these are—

1. Entities : material objects, immaterial objects, principles
2. Properties: quantities, qualities, relations
3. Activities: process, operations state.
4. Dimension: time, space, and position.

CATEGORIES IN DIFFERENT CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES:

DDC: In Dewey Decimal Classification scheme the ‘principle of parallel division was introduced by Melvil Dewey and applied with the help of divide like device. This device was initially used only in few classes such as 400 Philosophy, 800 Literature and 900 History. By analyzing all the main classes with the subjoined main classes of DDC we may derive that there are seven main categories. All the main classes and subclasses of the subject can put into these seven categories.

1. Reason: Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, Language, Science, and Useful Fine Arts.
2. Mind: Philosophy, Religion, Social Science, and Political Science.
3. Imagination: Literature.
4. Memory: History.
5. Matter: Physical Science.
6. Life: Biological Science, Ethnology, Medicine, Economic Biology, and Domestic Art.
7. Record: Language, Literature, and History.

UDC: Though Universal Decimal Classification was formed on the basis of 5^th edition of DDC by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, but they added auxiliary tables with distinct sign and symbols for categories like ‘place’ ‘time’ ‘nationality’ ‘language’ and other analytical divisions.

The most general categories are found in class 11/12 i.e. Metaphysics. Here 111.1 represent being, 111.3 is Substance, 111.4 is accident, 111.6 is action, 111.82 is unity and multiplicity etc. Again 116 represents Movement, 117 is for Matter, 118 shows Energy, 114 use as Space and 115 for Time.

The logical categories are found in UDC under16. ‘Action’ ‘Qualities’ or ‘properties’ ‘movement’ obviously present in almost everywhere in the schedule, particularly it is found in 531/534 (Mechanics), 541.12 (Chemical mechanics). Number and quantity are also found almost everywhere especially in 51(Mathematics).

But in aggregate ‘treatment of measurement’ in UDC does not appear very satisfactory. So we may conclude that main categories followed by UDC are

(1) Substance (2) Accident (3) Action (4) Unity and Multiplicity (5) Movement (6) Matter (7) Energy (8) Quality (9) Quantity (10) Space (11) Time.

CC: In Colon Classification the term ‘fundamental categories’ is represented by PMEST, which could be defined only enumeration. Ranganathan clearly mentioned that there are five and only five fundamental categories,viz. time, space energy,matter, and personality. According to A.C.Foskett analysis into Ranganathan’s fundamental categories is often useful in establishing the correct citation order for subject in other schemes.

Personality appears at the subsequent levels of the CC. After the 1^st division of the main class these are frequently subdivided according to facets derived from the energy category. Then by a second round of personality [2P] and so on. The second general category is ‘Energy’ introduced by the number by a colon (:). It states the rules consist generally of problems, action etc. There is no energy under literature and law at least in so far as the CC is concern. Ranganathan’s 3^rd general category is ‘Matter’ indicated in the notation numbers by a semi colon (;). It is usually consists of materials used for construction. The 4^th category is ‘Space’ and the last one is ‘Time’ indicated by the notation dot (.) and single inverted coma (‘) respectably.

1.Ranganathan personality material property method energy space time 5

2.Dobrowlski initial produ- material general process study 8

cts, industries, problems and

organizations properties control

3.Cordonnier organism ser- miscella- miscella- place 9

vices,persons neous neous

individuals, equipment actions

bodies intellec-

tual concepts,

documentary

forms

4.Grolier organ, form substance property action space time 10

analytic

synthetic

organization

5.Foskett products materials operations 4

parts

6.Kyle personalities activities 2

7.Vickery substance constitu- property process action space time 9

product, ent,object measure general operation

organism, of action general process general

part,organ raw mate- property operation

structure rials

agent, tool

8. Mills whole things material properties processes operations 8

kinds, parts,

9. Kent material properties processes miscellane- miscella- 5

miscellane- condition role indica- neous

ous role indi- tor role indi-

cator cator.

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Scenario changed during the middle ages and the period of Renaissance. European monastic community set up during early part of 2^nd century AD. Books were found to be essential to the spiritual life. The rule laid down for observance by several monastic orders enjoyed the use of book, recognized the importance of reading and study, making mention of a library and its used under the supervision of a PRECENTOR, one of whose duties was to issue the books and take daily inventory of them. So services started in the

form of reading and concept of librarian in the name of PRECENTOR also came into the picture.

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries book collecting everywhere became more widespread. Later part of the 18^th century, especially in England and United States there was a great vogue for the circulating and subscription library societies that provided reference services and lending collections for their members.

So now we can say services pattern changed from Ancient period to early part of Middle age and it was changed or better to say number of more different services included from early middle age to later part of 18^th century. Services changed from only collection and preservation to reading facilities than it included circulation lending and reference services. But till we don’t have any information about fees. Only it has been heard that during the period of PRECENTOR books were lent to other monasteries and even to the secular public against securities. So can I say fees system was introduced from that period?

The difficulties of library management grew in the 19^th century. Libraries had increased in size, but growth was haphazard. Standard of services become almost non-existent, fund for acquisition tended to be inadequate.

The paradigm for libraries and librarianship shifted radically in 20^th century with the advent of new information technology. Library services available throughout the world vary according to the types of libraries and also country to country.

Now I am trying to highlight the different types of libraries and their services .—

1.NATIONAL LIBRARY: its main function is to collect and preserve the nation’s history and culture and provides information.

2. ACADEMIC LIBRARIES:

1. School Libraries: Provide mainly textbook lending service.
2. College Libraries: Provide mainly lending services and some kind of reference services.
3. University Libraries: Provides mainly lending, reference and some kind of documentation services for special users.

3. PUBLIC LIBRARIES: Mainly reference services not limited to specific subject and some kind of lending services

4. SPECIAL LIBRARIES: I want to trace these types of libraries and their services. They mainly provide the documentation services and reference services. Initially its major portion depends on manual system so it took lot of time and could not reach the people at right time. But after the World War II, it started and got accelerate since last two decade, computer based system had given individual access to an enormous network of information. They were increasingly supplemented by the use of electronic database that contained everything from library catalogue and subject area indexes, abstracts to journal article and full text. Other than these services they provide CAS, SDI and services for specific quires. ****SLIDE-1

LOOK AT THE DIAGRAM, here I want to show you how service pattern has changed now. Today the services offered may be termed as ACTIVE information services which is combined of REACTIVE information service and PROACTIVE information services. And this services are Cost involve.

Now my question is that only fees can recover the increased cost for providing extra cost for providing extra services. I think it can not. Because (1) of their serious shortage of budget. (2) High price of document (3) huge amount initial installation cost for electronic devices.

If we look the historical review of user fees we can point out ---

1. The charging of user fees of libraries is not a recent phenomenon, but I have mentioned that even in middle age fees system was there.
2. Now most vital question I can raise, if user fees have been a part of libraries services for years after years so why they have attracted so much attention during the last decade? And what are the factors behind it, which obliged to think about the imposition of extra charge?

There are no single events, which may answer of this directing the profession’s attention to user, and they have stimulated much of the current debate. ***SLIDE –2.

• LACK OF BUDGET
• CHANGE THE ORIENTATION AND NATURE OF SERVICES
• HIGH PRICE OF DOCUMENTS
• HUGE AMOUNT OF INITIAL INSTALATION COST OF ELECTRONIC DEVICEES
• CHANGING MODE OF USERS DEMAND
• TO INCREASE THE QUALITY OF SERVICES
• TO COMPETE THE AGGRESSIVE PRIVATE SECTOR INFORMATION PROVIDERS
• TO IMPROVE THE POTENTIALITY OF LIBRARIES
• TO MAKE ONESELF SELF SUSTAIN.

EXPLAIN POINT 5—There are lot of change in users demand. They have no time to search the document and go through the whole document . Also information are growing and generating so fast that if they spent their time for searching the exact information then they may be puzzled or going backward. So they need specific, exact information and for that they are ready to pay.

A number of other factors are ---

1.The attempt by libraries to change their orientation and the nature of their services.

2. The coalescence of an aggressive private sector information industry, which generally favors the establishment of fees for services.

3.Extra charge would allow the determination and kinds of and levels of information product and services on the basis of users demand.

1. It must increase the quality of the services and potentiality of libraries.

Indian is a super power among the third world countries and 8^th in the world in terms of scientific research and paper publishing. Now the national investment on research and development and related science and technology activities in about 1.10% of GNP. And majority of the scientific and technical libraries in India are financed and managed by the govt. But some of the libraries in India are quite advanced while a large number of them are not upto the mark. The Govt. of India began to give a high priority on science and technology and scientific information during 5^th FYP (1974-1779), as a result NISSAT programme launched in Sept.1977. The process has been continuing in each plan.

DRTC started experiment on computer applications in information processing since mid 1960’s. Same activities started by INSDOC since 1967. NAL(Banglore), BARC(Bombay), TIFR(Madras) started their computer application since early 1970s. From late 1980’s The UNESCO’s CDS/ISIS software package was made available to Indian libraries by NISSAT brings a dramatic change in libraries and information centers and their services in India.

Seeing the high demand of information and dramatic change of national S&T and R&D centers a lot of private companies came into the picture. The Informatics(India) Pvt. Ltd. Bangalore, CMC Ltd.,Hyderabad

(lounched INDONET, the commercial computer network)are popular of them.

But the problem is that a majority of scientific and technical libraries receive low priorities in their institution budget. This I have mentioned early is one cause to impose extra charge. A random sample of 26 libraries indicated that none of the library spends even 6% of their institution budget.

***SLIDE--- 3

Source: Malhan, I.V. Ph.D. Thesis. P.U. University. Chandigarh, 1994. 87p.

At the same time increase in price and foreign exchange fluctuation creates a lot of problems to the information centers. So only one way the can recover these increased cost by imposing price into some specific services.

The INSDOC already started to provide computerized SDI services to about 250 to 300 scientists for Currant Awareness and INSPEC data base using CAN/SDI software against charge. For online facilities at NAL Bangalore for using ESA database they also imposing charge. Looking this fact IISC Bangalore also going to charge for its computerized SDI services.

In conclusion of my part I clearly want to mention that I am honestly in favor of fee based services and that also for specific services. If someone come to library for borrow a book we are not going to charge. We will charge only against service not for providing document. Yes anyone can access through internet and can get free information and searching facilities but then they may spent lot of time and also they may confused about his real requirement. So they need professional help for exact information. And for that he is ready to pay. Proof , a lot of private information providing company earning a huge profit. So I want to say to meet the high demand of information , to provide the best quality of services and to compete with emerging private information providing companies library and information centres must have to be imposed some extra charge for their special services.

PRACHI SOMAN.

My friend has already made a statement that in today’s world it is necessary to charge fees for the service provided by the libraries. But I would like to disagree with him. In this talk I will put forth my argument in the favor of free library services. As a part of introduction let’s first briefly go through the history of evolution of libraries.

 Evolution of libraries:

It’s a product of society’s need to preserve the records of human knowledge. We can trace the existence of library, in crude form, even at the time when clay tablets were used as a writing material. We can find many other writing materials used for writing and they are preserved in a place generally called library. The main aim of these types of libraries was to preserve the records or books (in different form) for the next generation. That time they used to neglect the current use of library materials because handling and using of books may cause some damage to the books. But this situation changed mainly because of two inventions first is the paper and second is the printing.

When paper was available for writing it became easy to preserve and maintain those books than any other material but still writing a book by hand needs lot of skill, money and manpower. So there were used to be few number of copies of the books. So again those books were not available to everybody for use. Its use was highly restricted. Then we came to the ‘chained library age’ where books were available to privileged class of the society which were used to be chained for protection.

Up to this point of time libraries main aim was to preserve the records of human knowledge for posterity. After the invention of printing revolutionary change came in this field. With the invent of printing it became possible to have multiple copies of the books. Now books became affordable, at least to some sections of the society.

When library science as a discipline evolved they were talking about the maximum use of books. They emphasis the function of giving service to society rather than guarding the books. In India Dr. S. R. Rangnathan started this revolution. In his book "Five laws of library science" the first law itself says that ‘books are for use’

It is more interesting to see the second law in our context. It runs as follows "Every reader his or her book" which means every reader irrespective of his education, social status, caste, economic status and so on should (or I would say) must get the document which will satisfy his information needs. And to implement this law effectively many types of libraries came up.

We have already noted that library is an institution emerged out of social needs. Basically libraries are expected to do three kinds of jobs. It has to work in three kinds of environment

1. It has a role in the socio-economic development of the nation. It is library’s duty to produce the informed citizen, who have sufficient knowledge about the current and past events, who can think on their own. Make their opinions and express them as and when need arises. Library is a source available to society, to know what is going on in the society. Here, library mainly works as a mediator and disseminates ‘society’s knowledge’ again to the society for the betterment of the society.

As we all know public libraries are emerged to care of this function of libraries that is serving the society as a whole to achieve its desirable goal.

2. The second environment in which library has a vital role to perform is the academic environment. Libraries are called heart of the educational institutions. Their role in self-learning is very important. Libraries help the students to acquire the better knowledge of the subject they are studying. Libraries can make them available the universe of knowledge, not only that by different type of services libraries also guide them to the best sources of information. In the other words in academic environment libraries support the classroom learning, provide a ground for further research.

Academic libraries are doing this job for many years. They include school libraries, college libraries and university libraries.

3. Third role of the library is to support the R&D activities in the country. For that matter we need to have special libraries. They have the special collection generally devoted to a subject or a discipline, they serve the special kind of users who are the specialists in that field, for that purpose libraries have to give special kind of services to satisfy their needs or requirements.

In the industries and R&D labs, where research activities are going on the importance of information is immense. In fact, without proper and accurate information research can not go on. Constantly at every point of time it needs help from libraries. Providing right and timely information is the job of the library.

In a single line we may conclude that to cater the different kinds of needs of society different types of libraries have came up.

Now we will discuss the issue of charging fees for library services. We will talk about the three types of libraries on by one.

First comes the public library. Libraries have social obligations. Library is not a profit making organization like a factory. Public libraries are satisfying the basic information needs of the society so their services must be given free. Another point is that society is paying taxes that is generating funds necessary for public libraries. And now my simple question is that what is the need to collect extra fees?

Charging the fees is against the democratic principle of equal rights. We should consider this in the context of India. In our country many citizens do not have enough money to buy the food for two times a day and how they can afford to buy the information? As we all know information leads to power if the poor people are deprived of knowledge they can not develop in life, they will become more poor and this vicious circle will never end.

In the academic environment it is an integral part of the learning process. Without a good library any educational institution survive. So its part of educational process. And, question of charging for services does not come at all. Students do not have money to buy the services. It is institution’s responsibility to make them available the required library services. In other words, academic libraries should provide library service without charging any extra fees. Students are already paying some amount as library fees.

Now comes the special library. We have already seen that, there the library’s job is to support the research activity. Library services are a necessary to carry out the research. They have to depend upon the libraries for needed information, they don’t have any other option. In this case industries and R&D labs are taking care of their libraries in order to support the research. Then why should a researcher pay for this essential library service?

Libraries are getting enough funds through taxes, fees and other funds. Library is not a profit making organization so it needs money only to be self-sufficient. Charging for the services is not a solution to the scarcity of resources. Proper allocation of available budget, good management of available resources is necessary to give effective library services.

Good management includes taking the right decisions and then proper implementation to improve the efficiency it means maximum utilization of available resources. These decisions should be based upon the users’ requirements. To know the information needs of the users users study is very essential. It will definitely reduce the wastage of budget, or allocation of budget to the unwanted sections. My friend, Samir will talk about it in more details. But the point here is that libraries are getting enough funds only proper use should be made. Then there will be no need to collect extra fees from the readers.

Another very important point is the introduction of information technology. To a great extent it is helping the libraries to reduce the expenditure, saving the time of the library staff and providing a solid foundation for resource sharing. Librarians should use the IT to the possible extent to serve the users. But readers should not be given the burden of the cost that library has to pay for the infrastructure, necessary for IT. My friend Mr. Pankaj will deal with the subject in more details.

Now before concluding I would like to draw your attention to a very important point. The first thing is that library is a service giving institution which provides information. Now information has a very unique character that is information is never consumed. Means, for example, if I borrow a book, I read that, seek information and I return it to library, some other person may come and read the same book. He can get the same information again. That means that if I use information not does not get finished. If I use a pen the ink will be finished other person cannot use the same pen with same ink again. This is the main difference between information and any other commodity. So we have to invest money only at once for a book or a CD and we can use it for n number of times. It automatically reduces the cost. And why readers should be charged for the information they are not consuming?

Now while summing up I would like to say that giving free services to its users is a job of every library. It is giving back the society’s knowledge to the society. Libraries should use new techniques, better management to tackle the problem of scarcity of resources. There is no need to collect extra charges from the users.

PRAMOD KUMAR SINGH

 **** Till document has not typed….

" IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY vis-à-vis FREE LIBRARY SERVICES."

By- Pankaj kumar Das.

As you have just heard the reasons for charging "extra fee" for library & information services by Mr. Pramod kumar, yes Indexing do agree with him to some extent, but not as a whole. Nobody can overlook the social aspects of it too. I am totally under the impression that it should be given "free" and for this I put forward my argument as follows:

1. Library Budget= Every library has a certain budget particularly to collection development & staff salary. As far as salary are concerned, we may here allocate certain budget for these services at the time of preparing expenditure keeping all factors in mind.
2. Development of the attitude of accessiveness= Due to the availability of almost all the document in the form of CD-ROM have a greater impact on the library services as it will certainly reduce the cost considerably, and the saving thus formed can be used to provide services.

3.0 Paper- based Publication= It provides far more comfortable reading, when one

4. Rapid change in IT= With the rapid change in IT, the CD-ROMs which are

considered as "interim technologies" are likely to be replaced by DVDs ( Digital Video Discs) in the near future, will become unusable as the drive for the CD-ROMs will go out of market. The heavy investments made in CD-ROM collections will have to be repeated for acquiring the new technology based collections.

5. Converting Problem= Converting the existing library collections into digital

libraries will be a formidable task with the associated software, human skills and copyright problems.

6. Problem with INTERNET based publication = Using Internet based publications has two main problems. ONE, it is the lack of organization of the information published through Internet and so, one has to spend several hrs even for reasonably exhaustive information searches. The Internet may be compared to a large library without a catalogue, whose stock is unclassified and randomly shelved. Given Such chaos and the time needed to become familiar with its ever changing resources, academicians and researches even in advanced countries mostly prefer paper- based scholarly publications than their Internet editions, perhaps because of the convenience.

SECOND, a large part of the information available on Internet is not evaluated OR authentic and therefore cannot be relied upon for serious use. Such a situation can sometimes lead to the possibility that Internet became a vehicle for disinformation, ranging from conscious deception to inadvertent inaccuracies.

7.0 Infrastructural cost of IT= In the todays world, IT is enevitable and it reduces the cost. It is a one-time investment and being a major factor, it has been seen that in the subsequent year the cost of IT reduces, so there is at all no need to collect "extra fee". Infact on the other hand, its (IT) diverse functions & power is increasing day by day thus, reducing the cost of its installation as the competition in the market is very high.

8.0 Reduce Manpower= Due to the implementation of IT, it reduces the number of manpower to a great extent. Salary, being the most important factor may be saved and thus utilized for giving library services.

9. Resource- Sharing = If the libraries form a network with the help of IT, then each and every library are not supposed to purchase every document in e-form, rather they can themselves make understanding that as per the requirement which library is going to purchase what document, and after that they will share it. Thus, it will empower their library facilities to a greater extent.
10. Making available the library facilities to outsiders= The library resources and facilities are at present made available to its own users in special & academic libraries. If the same facilities are offered to outsiders by charging, the resultant is generating finances. This is successfully practiced by many Library Information. Centers as " Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad", which is able to generate few lakhs of Rs. Per annum by providing their facilities to industrial houses.

11. Consultancy & Project work= Library & Information Centers can take the consultancy work for designing the databases, library automation etc. The senior and experienced staff can be assigned such consultancy projects. Successful completion of the consultancy projects generates the finances, which can be used for giving library services to the users.
12. Internet facility= Internet being the household name, and the various services it offered, many of the information is available totally free of cost. Information available on the Net may not be a structured one.

A survey, published in the journal "Computers in libraries" in 1995, found that librarians usually took less time to provide information from library collections than from Internet. A paper published in " Communications of the ACM (1995) also advises, " IF YOU ARE IN A HURRY, GO TO LIBRARY NOT TO INTERNET." Searching on the Net is often more expeditious. This is not to say Internet is not useful for accessing information, but its contribution should not be overemphasized.

If Internet is going to be used by librarians, then a no. Of steps will have to be taken to make it more useful. For e.g. it will be necessary to develop and implement standards for organizing and evaluating information. One possible approach could be developing catalogues for the materials available on Internet in which case the feasibility for such cataloguing is to be worked out first. A problem with such an approach could be that different versions of a file may be accessed through different gophers, and files can disappear, be removed OR amended without warning. Thus, any library cataloguing information of its interest available on Internet has no control on such aspects.

13. Access point= By implementing IT in our libraries we can provide numerous services from one nodal point to the users, if we just increase the no. of access/ nodal points, we can’t charge fee from the users, as initially we have already paid at the time of installation.

Keeping all the above mentioned factors in mind, I think it is not at all necessary to take " extra fee", but inspite of these if we are taking it, then it may create a problem, which in turn hamper the smooth functioning of the libraries. These may be summarized as follows:

( A ) Problem of Marketing= They have decided to charge "fee", but they have no clue of the whereabouts of the marketing as the demand is not being studied carefully.

( b ) Constant Production = In cyberspace, often works are constantly changing over time as electronic communities, together create information. In such an environment, at which point is something marked as an identifiable commodity? Similarly, many forms of Net are producing multiple manifestations at different points of time. The problem this raise for libraries is deciding which VERSION(s) of a text to acquire & what will be its cost, & atleast how to sale it, without knowing its users.

( C ) Problem of determining the needs and demand of information clients = The libraries had not performed any "User Study" before implementing this idea, nor they had collected any data pertaining to it, creating a total collapse of it.

At the end of my presentation, I can say that if we are taking "extra fee", then it gives rise to a no. Of unanswered questions, and the important ones are---

1. HOW TO MARKET THESE SERVICES? AND
2. WHICH e-VERSIONS TO BE PRICED & ON WHICH BASIS?

Mr. Pankaj has mentioned in his presentation that, if we are going for Information Technology (IT), in a long run it will reduce the cost and libraries will be able to provide a free service. This is a wrong notion. Today's technology will become obsolete tomorrow. If it is CD today, tomorrow it may become a DVD. (Even DVD will fade away when new technologies like fluorescent multilayering which enables to store 150 GB of information in a 120mm FMD-ROM come in to market). The technological changes are faster than anything. For to cop up with these, libraries should have to find out alternate sources of income. But at the same time nobody can deny the relevance of IT in libraries. But one thing which my friend forgets is that the enormous capacity of these technologies, which can be channeled for producing information products. Information is recognized as a commodity nowadays. It has a market value similar to any other products. Nobody will be ready for to give you information freely. Libraries are no more regarded as a storehouses of books. Information service is coming to the front end. The society requirements are also changing. There are a growing number of groups with specific information requirements. They are ready to pay for these services also.

From the past itself libraries had all the stuff for producing information products. But they were not doing it. The concept of free was the major hindrance to it. The IT is opening a global market for a libraries. Their product is not restricted within their community. There may be clients from different parts of the world. There are many private companies and information centers already started to selling information. For example, Informatics, Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore is selling their products both inside and outside country. INSDOC is selling their information products through JLS (Journal List Service) and EBS (Electronic Books Service). Why libraries can’t follow this method? They have all the resources to produce information products. There are many public and private businesses and individuals ready for to pay if the library could meet their objectives.

Fee service doesn’t mean that we are going to charge for each and every services. We are not going to charge each and every user. We can charge for value added or premium services. We are not forcing them to pay, rather their demand force us to charge.

For these purposes we have to reconstruct our existing library services. Simply charging for the existing services will call oppose from users. The concept of marketing and its techniques help libraries here.

Many people confuse selling with marketing. Marketing is not simply an exchange of goods or selling products. It’s also not a term peculiar to business firms. According to Kotler ‘it is the applied social science concerned with the management of exchange relations among people who provide or service (i.e. producers) and their current or potential clients (i.e. consumers). So marketing aim at consumer, his requirements, satisfaction, etc as the key to satisfying organizational goal.

Basic concept of marketing is applicable to all types of business. It is not only essential for manufacturing industries but also service industries, government enterprises and nonprofit making activities and basic tenets of marketing remain same in all the cases. Free service philosophy of library services has been the hindrance in development of marketing attitude among L&I professionals. Although there is no such thing as free service. Most of expenditure made on L&I service is met by the state with the revenue received from taxes, fees, levies etc. Hence the cost of the service is met by taxpayers indirectly. Still many libraries are a failure in satisfying their user requirements and many resources are underutilized.

The product that libraries provide are varied and ever changing and consist of core, tangible, and augmented products. It includes physical objects, services, persons, places, organizations, and ideas. Products include all of the goods and services made available through the library. These products might include materials owned by the library and services provided by staff of the library, but increasingly the products might also be such things as contracted services from other providers for which the library serves as a type of agent for the client. Products might be electronic information or access to information actually held by other libraries. The ways in which libraries package information and organize access points between the client and the information are also products of the library. Therefore, cataloguing, classifying, circulation, OPACs, indexes, etc all are library products.

Out of this product, some of them are very basic which no library can deny and charge. But at the same time services like Selective Dissemination of Information, Translation Service, Abstracting, Indexing, CD-ROM searching, Internet Searching etc, which are value added can be charged. So now it’s the duty of libraries to find out the potential user, their requirements, products, price of the products, promotion of the product, evaluation of the product etc.

Firstly the library should have to analyze both the external and internal circumstances of the library for identifying it’s strengths, limitations, and present practice. In external analysis the following elements include. Demographics, Geography, Sociology and Psychology, Economics, Technology, Politics, Culture and Competition. Further it should forecast the future trends also. Libraries can use different methods for assessing the environment. It can use either secondary sources or conduct a sampling survey. A sampling survey can conduct by using Telephone Survey, Mail Survey, Interview, Focus Group, Community Meeting etc.

Once environmental data have been gathered, library can analyze its clients, their needs, what products are within its purview, what delivery system shall be employed, and to what intent. It also helps us to identify the different segments in customers. All customers can be (present and potential) divided in to categories, each of which may require different kinds of service and support. The same overall community population can be separated by age, location, profession, department, technical competence, and any other characteristic that may help define service requirements.

Price can be defined as the market value assigned to an item. Basically the product of a library is ‘information product’. There are a lot of problems we will face while trying to fix the price of an information product. Historical perception of many library and information users is that information is free and easily obtained and there is a natural unwillingness to pay high prices or to pay at all. Another problem is that the same information can be viewed and valued in entirely different ways by different customers. Many case customers want the information in a succinct and digestible form. These things should be taken care while fixing the price of a product.

The traditional approach of cost based pricing, that is, establishing costs and adding a percentage markup has been found to be common, particularly in relation to charging for online services. Another approach is to look in to competitors rate and see how a price might compare, even if the service or product is aimed at different markets. Many libraries are using Unit Price method for charging online services. They charge for connected time and numbers of item downloaded. But this has serious problem. The downloaded information may not be relevant. But still we are charging. Here we are charging for the item instead of information. Pricing by time spend for the service is another method. But this is not a reliable method. It subject to the person involved in providing service. Another method is pricing per item. For example, writing an abstract, preparing records for a database etc. An individual item may require more or less time to complete. So an average price can be calculated and used as the basis for agreeing on a price. One another method is fixed price. For example finishing a project. Library can calculate the labor cost, fixed cost, and all direct expenses related to the project and finally add the profit also. But in this case a librarian should have sufficient experience in fixing the cost. The ‘membership’ as a pricing unit has a number of advantages. From the point of view the customers, a number of products or services are available whenever needed, as part of the membership. From the point of view of the library, ‘membership’ can be a useful marketing tool. They can charge separate membership fee for different groups based on the services providing. Many libraries are following this method for users inside the organizations and outside groups (e.g. IIM Library).

After identifying the products, cost and price the next step is to connect each product with the target clients. Library should provide different channels of distribution which will meet the clients needs in terms of both time and convenience. Placing the library product in the market place is a complex endeavor. A library should take care the quality, time, priority, convenience, and format of presentation.

Promotion and communication is one of the important aspect. Whatever good product you have, if you don’t have a good promotional activities, then your product will not catch the market. So it is essential to communicate to the community and to present and to the potential clients that the library has identified their needs and has developed both cost and effective products and methods of distribution that respond to those needs. This can be done by effective public relations, publicity, advertising, incentive and atmospherics.

Constant evaluation of the products and its activities are important for to keep up with the market. Market may be highly dynamic. Taking care of this, we can redefine existing products and add newer one.

The new social paradigm is forcing libraries too to change. There is still a considerable need for librarians and information professional to develop their knowledge and skills in marketing. Most of the public sector firms in western countries have already started to selling their Information Services, Products and Databases. Two points, which I like to make out from this discussion, are that;

1. Information is a commodity. It has a market value . So we can charge for it.
2. The fee concept of library services not only help libraries to self sufficient but also it ensures the product quality, maximum utilization of resources, user satisfaction, and professional satisfaction to the staff who involved in the product development. The concept of marketing is inevitable in this regard.

1. The Marketing of Library & Information Services, Aslib, London, 1981.
2. Manual for marketing of Information products and Services: A guide for Library and Information Professionals, Workshop, Aug 15-18, 1996, Ahmedabad, IIM
3. Gupta, D. K: Marketing in library and information context: myths and realities, Library Science with a Slant to Documentation and Information Studies, 35(2), 1998, p.99-104
4. Powers, J. E: Marketing in the special library environment, Library Trends, 43(3), 1995, p.478-93.
5. Weingand, D. E: Marketing of library and information services, Library Trends 43 (3) 1995, p.289-513.
6. Coote, H: Marketing matters - to you, your staff, your customers, Aslib Information 21 (9) Sep 93, p.338-40.
7. . Mure, R. F: Marketing your library and information service to business, Online17 (4) 1993, p.41-6.

Samir kumar jalal

The concept ‘Marketing’ is purely related to selling of commodity. Generally, the objective of selling of commodity means to earn profit. As library is non-profit organization, we cannot apply the concept of marketing here. Secondly, Mr.Gireesh has mentioned that" Information is a commodity". I don't believe so because the main characteristic of commodity is that it is visible and tangible. Information is not visible. Library and information center is specially service-oriented center, so main motto of library is to disseminate information. According to the definitional point of view, library is a trinity of "User, Staff, and Document." The whole game of library and information center lies on the user. Users continued to be one of the most important components of Library and information system. Now a day, user study, survey, education and training are very much essential in designing and operating documentation and information service. User satisfaction is the current day approach to documentation and information services, therefore the outlook of these libraries should change from orienting the organization and services from the angle of users and their satisfactions. Douglas wood rightly said, "the key to any marketing analysis is to examine your users need rather than evaluating these services and products you are currently offering."

1. To identify the homogeneous user group.
2. To understand the need of information of a particular group of user.
3. For effective use of library services.
4. To make and a careful study of the library situation.
5. To measure the adequacy of a library collection for present and possible future library program.
6. To discover the mathematical model for patterns of library use, in relation to different types of user and also in relation to different types of document.
7. For effective use of financial resources
8. For optimum use of library resources
9. For balanced collection development.

10.To assess adequacy of collection and facilities.

11.To determine level of user satisfaction and attitude towards libraries.

14.To identify user success and failure

15.To identify new trends and needs.

17. To identify information flow and literature use habits

Here I would like to represent one ‘user study model ‘ whose ultimate objective is to identify the related factors and their interrelationship among them to understand the situation. The information-seeking behavior results from the recognition of some need prospective by the users. That behavior may take several forms: for example, the user may make demands upon formal system (such as libraries, on-line services). Alternatively, users may seek information from other people, rather than the system itself.

Here I would like to represent one 'user study model' whose ultimate objective is to identify the related factors and their interrelationship among them to understand the situation. The information seeking behavior results from the recognition of some need perspective by the user. That behavior may take several forms: for example, the user may make demands upon formal system that are customarily defined as information system (such as libraries, on-line services,). Alternatively, users may seek information from other people, rather than the system itself.

So from the above study of users requirement and its related activities and from the social uplivement point of view we can made some argument:

.