CHANDIGARH–April 11, 2008:A C Joshi Library of Panjab University is connected with all the departments and offices in the campus through local area net working. In fact while logging on to the library website www.library.puchd.ac.in any scholar while sitting on computer in his office can access a vast ocean of electronic resources like books, journals, conference proceedings, patents, theses, reports, etc. It is no exaggeration to say that any serious reader has been provided the facility of a full fledged library on his desk and one need not come to the library for the purpose.The main catalogue of the library with approx. 7 lac records of books, periodicals and theses is web based and can be accessed through OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) from anywhere on 24 x 7 basis. Under the UGC-INFONET Consortium Programme, University teachers, research scholars and students have an absolutely free access to approx. 4500 online full text journals with the facility to take print outs. Total cost of this collection, if purchased from the market, comes out to be approx. Rs. 70 crore per year. In addition, other important links like forthcoming conferences, electronic reference sources, theses and dissertations, subject gateways, Indian reference sources, and much more have been provided on this web site.
In addition to the noble tradition of providing best online resources to its readers; today, in the auditorium of Chemistry Department a new cite of subject ‘online portals’ devised by Mr. Neeraj Kumar Singh of A C Joshi Library was demonstrated to the students and faculty members. Under the first leg of this programme versatility of ‘P.U. Chemistry Portal’ was presented by him. This portal provides a single window access for essential books, periodicals, conference proceedings, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. Necessary links for the repository of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and IIT, Delhi, MIT, Mass., Oxford University and CSIR have been provided.
Patent data base of CSIR has been especially highlighted. 32 important online data bases relating to Chemical Sciences have also been provided in this portal. Mr. Neeraj Kumar Singh during his presentation pointed out that this was a pilot project. We have already started working on the portals of other departments and on the basis of feed back from this pilot project we will soon be coming out with many such ventures according to
Dr. V. K. Anand, University Librarian.