Appendix 2
In India, in 1979, astronomy librarians established the FORSA (Forum
for Resource Sharing in Astronomy). When PAM-APF was being formed, we were
invited to join this Regional forum to have an extended information exchange
facility, not only within the astronomy libraries, but also with physics,
mathematics and computer science libraries. This was a good opportunity
for us to make our Forum more formal within the country and also to represent
ourselves in the Asia/Pacific Regional Forum.
Many of our libraries in India face financial constraints every year, and to mitigate this problem, cooperation and exchange of our collections and services has come to our rescue many times. Even in developed countries, sharing of library resources is the mantra in different forms. Since India is a developing country, we constantly work towards improving our infrastructure and technology to meet the demands of our scientists and researchers by taking the lead from the developed countries. As a member of PAM-APF, we have a great opportunity to interact with like-minded librarians outside our country. We also have the confidence that information quality and services in our libraries will soon match those in the developed countries, thus making use of the support of the Regional Forum.
Recently, some of the special libraries in Bangalore have expressed their need for a consortium for the sharing of electronic journals, an exercise which FORSA had already attempted for the astronomy journals published by Kluwer Academic publishers. There are seventeen libraries which have responded to a questionnaire, indicating their willingness to join a consortium for this purpose. Most of these special libraries have a focus on physics, astronomy, mathematics and computer science in their collection of books and journals. Since these libraries are already experiencing a financial crunch, especially to subscribe to the expensive journals, the move to form a consortium to share the cost of the access to e-journals is an essential task in the immediate future. We have been able to communicate our requirements for a special pricing policy as developing country members to Kluwer Academic publishers and Springer-Verlag. Though we cannot claim that there is a visible special offer from them, they have sent us two or three options and combinations depending on the journals subscribed to and the number of members constituting the consortium.
In March 2000, there was a general circular from the American Physical Society about the Multi-tiered pricing policy for the APS journals in the year 2001. We have asked the APS to consider a different pricing policy for developing countries, since they do not have any convenient classifications for foreign institutions currently. There was a positive response from the publisher expressing their concern about developing countries, and they assured their help in keeping the developing world in the lowest tier category, which would give a significant price decrease next year. We do believe that the publishers/vendors are partners in the information industry, and thus their concern for the libraries that function from another corner of the world.
Since most of the publishers/vendors are outside India, we must establish direct communication with them either through e-mail or fax in order to receive a speedy action when any need arises. These special libraries feel the necessity to have liaison persons from the Asia/Pacific region to represent the different publishers similarly to the way it is established from the PAM division for the libraries situated in North America and Europe. We feel that the Asia/Pacific libraries will have closer and faster communication with the representatives when the need arises. This special library consortium will take up the communication with the publishers/vendors shortly.