Based on the recommendation of an Expert Committee, the Ministry of HRD (now renamed as Ministry of Education) has formed e-ShodhSindhu merging three consortia initiatives, namely UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium, NLIST and INDEST-AICTE Consortium.The e-ShodhSindhu will continue to provide current as well as archival access to more than 10,000 core and peer-reviewed journals and a number of bibliographic, citation and factual databases in different disciplines from a large number of publishers and aggregators to its member institutions including centrally-funded technical institutions, universities and colleges that are covered under 12(B) and 2(f) Sections of the UGC Act.
The main objective of the e-ShodhSindu: Consortia for Higher Education E-Resources is to provide access to qualitative electronic resources including full-text, bibliographic and factual databases to academic institutions at a lower rates of subscription. The major aims and objectives of the e-Shodh Sindhu are as follows:
- Setting-up e-ShodhSindu: Consortia for Higher Education E-Resources by augmenting and strengthening activities and services offered by three MHRD-funded Consortia;
- Develop a formidable collection of e-journals, e-journal archives and e-books on perpetual access basis;
- Monitor and promote usage of e-resources in member universities, colleges and technical institutions in India through awareness and training programmes;
- Provide access to subscription-based scholarly information (e-books and e-journals) to all educational institutions;
- Provide access to scholarly content available in open access through subject portals and subject gateways;
- Bridge digital divide and move towards an information-rich society;
- Provide access to selected e-resources to additional institutions including open universities and MHRD-funded institutions that are not covered under existing consortia;
- Take-up additional activities and services that require collaborative platform and are not being performed by existing Consortia; and
- Moving towards developing a National Electronic Library with electronic journals and electronic books as its major building blocks.
