An Innovation Grants (IG) is funded by World Bank and ICAR under National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP) and sanctioned to UAS, Raichur with a budget allocation of Rs. 499.95 Lakhs for a period of three years starting from 2019-20.
The Project has been formulated with a focus to improve and sustain quality of higher agricultural education by establishing digital library for information services to strengthen and develop a globally competitive agricultural human resource. Overall, the project aims to develop resources and mechanism for supporting infrastructure, faculty and student advancement, and providing means for better governance and management of agricultural universities, so that a holistic model can be developed to raise the standard of current agricultural education system that provides more jobs and is entrepreneurship oriented and at par with global agricultural education standards.
Project Title:
“Digitisation of Library for Information Services to Strengthen and Develop Competitive Human Resources at Agricultural University”
Specific Thematic Area:
- Strengthening of Library with e-Resources and Digitisation at UAS, Raichur
- Developing competitive human resources at UAS, Raichur
The background information on scope and purpose of the proposed IG:
The world of Libraries and Information Centres has been witnessing a sea of changes due to its development and deployment of information and communication technologies. This has not only changed the way information is generated, organized, stored and distributed but also have become indispensable tools for teaching, learning and research. Since the new technologies are forever redefining the model of delivering instruction and service to keep pace with the technological advancement in Information and Communication Technology (ITC) to meet the expectations of the users.
University Library of UAS, Raichur is having a good collection of documents in Agricultural Science and Agricultural Engineering and allied subjects housing a total of 57000 books, 142 current journals including National and International publications, 2600 thesis and dissertations, 450 seminar scripts, 310 institutional annual reports, 110 conference/workshops proceedings and 4500 gifts books and other reference materials and the Book Bank Scheme of the University Library having 2425 books for the benefit of SC/ST Students. However, the libraries of the constituent colleges namely, College of Agriculture, Bheemarayanagudi and College of Agriculture, Kalaburagi need to be strengthened with e-resources at the library. This would facilitate accreditation of constituent colleges under UAS Raichur.
The University Library is making sincere efforts to establish a modern knowledge management based library to cater to the needs of students pursuing higher education in agriculture and allied fields in Kalyana Karnataka Region of the state. There is a paradigm shift happening in the concept of library, transforming from brick to click, analogue to digital and from collection to connection.
The library is growing to be more:
- Disseminator of knowledge and trainer in information technology.
- Promoter of extension activities with regard to the creation of the database, publication of the multimedia and other documents and the distribution of documents.
- Part of the global information system to facilitate the communication among the academicians and research scholars all over the globe
- Supporting link among institutions and individuals with information services at the click of the mouse.
With this background, the project on Digitisation of Library has been designed with following objectives.
Objectives of the Project
- To improve quality of agricultural education by allowing students to use digital facilities to access information.
- To empower students to convey a richer message through the use of multimedia and hypermedia technologies.
- To empower other universities to unlock the information resources and to advance digital library technology.
- To strengthen the libraries of constituent colleges of the university with e-resources to facilitate the process of accreditation.
Expected outcomes of the Project
- Increase in the performance to the extent of 5-10 % in competitive exams such as Junior Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow/Agricultural Research Services and other Competitive Scholarship and Civil Service Examination.
- Increased enrolment of students (5-8% each year) for Agricultural education-by creating awareness of the university by showcasing strengths through websites and inter connectivity among other educational institutions.
- Make a name of university globally and getting brand name in terms of quality education and knowledge services-by submitting for ranking of university to different organisations for evaluation of standards and ranking.
