B Guha and S.N. Sur
Institute of Social Analysis and Communication New Delhi-10049

 

The communication is based on the report of a survey by the same title, submitted earlier to NISSAT. It highlights the salient point in the report and attempts to present a picture of a typical industrial library and information centre in the country.

- Editor

1. Introduction

Several directories of libraries and information centres (LICs) have been compiled, in India, from time to time, wherein the focus has always been on the academic and research institutions. Very few industrial establishments have ever been included in the available directories or databases. Recognising this lacuna, NISSAT in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, decided to conduct a survey and prepare a database of the information resources and facilities of the industrial establishments in the country.

2. The Present Study

To keep the size of the project within manageable limits it was decided to have a selection of the industrial establishments, in the first attempt. Accordingly, it was decided to include establishments which were spending Rs.one crore or more on R&D annually, and also those which were recognised by the Research and Development by Industry Division of the DSIR, under its scheme of granting recognition for income tax and customs duty exemptions. A sub-set of the database covering such establishments was obtained by NISSAT from the said Division. It contained the names of 234 establishments, including a few non-industrial establishments. It was decided to include all of them.

NISSAT entrusted the entire work relating to the project to the Institute of Social Analysis and Communication (ISAC). However, the list of establishments to be covered, as said above, and the questionnaire used in the study were supplied by NISSAT. The response was slow as a consequence of which the cut-off date had to be revised and finally pushed to the end of November 1996. Till then 95 completed questionnaires were received, which works out to about 40 per cent response rate. The study and also the database were based on these 95 returns.

3. Nature of the Enterprises Covered

As could be expected, 67 of the enterprises reported as their main activity manufacture of some products. Some of them reported both manufacturing and research as their main activities. Excluding from these group those firms which were engaged in the routine R&D activities like product and process improvement, design, quality control, trouble shooting and so on, there were at least 16 manufacturing establishments which were having research as a major component of their activities. In addition, there were 10 establishments which were mainly engaged in research activities, e.g. the Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, Delhi, and the Dabur Research Foundation, Shahibabad.

Further, 17 establish-ments reported consultancy as their main activity or was one of their main activities. There were enterprises like the Engineers India Ltd. and the Tata Consultancy Services whose main activities were consultancy and at the same time enterprises like the ACC Ltd.-R&C Directorate, whose main activities were manufacturing, research, and consultancy. Apart from the above mentioned three main categories, there were 8 establishments/institutions which were engaged in activities like health/medical services, maintenance, marketing, and mining.

Among the 67 manufacturing enterprises the largest group of 15 was found in the field of electrical industries, which included power generation, transmission equipment, and control devices. Two other major groups were drugs & pharmaceuticals and chemicals, with 9 enterprises in each group. Lesser concentration was observed in 3 more groups in the fields of metallurgy, electronic industry, and automobile/Automotive accessories and tractors, with 5 enterprises in each group. The remaining 18 enterprises were engaged in the fields of soaps, detergents, cosmetics (3); machine tools, pumps, valves (3); paints, resins, emulsions (2); seeds production (2); fertiliser (2), synthetic yarns/fibres (2); and one each in petrochemicals, pesticides, minor irrigation system products, photographic products, and welding accessories.

Of the 26 establishments which reported research as their main activity or one of their main activities, the areas of research were very wide. Each one of them had chosen its own unique area(s) of research.

Of the 17 establishments which had reported consultancy as their main activity or as one of their main activities, 10 were providing consultancy services in the field of engineering.

On the basis of the legal status, the enterprises were distributed as follows: Public Ltd.-48; Private Ltd.-20; Public Sector-12; Joint Sector-3; Registered Society and Trusts-4; Status not specified-8. Thus, about 50 per cent of the enterprises were Public Ltd. companies.

On the basis of geographical distribution, more than half of the responding enterprises, 54 to be exact, were located in Maharashtra with 42 in Mumbai alone. There were 9 responses from Tamil Nadu, 8 from Gujarat, 6 from Karnataka, 4 from Haryana, and the remaining 14 from seven other states.

4. Holdings of Library/Infor-mation Centres (LICs)

Information about holdings of (i) Documents (books, conference proceedings, reports, periodicals, patents, standards, translated articles, drawings, maps); (ii) Non-documentary materials (audio-video, CD-ROM, magnetic tapes, microforms, etc); and (iii) Information on electronic media (CD-ROM, magnetic tapes/floppies, online facilities) were received. For the first category of documents, holdings figures for books, monographs and conference proceedings were available for 84 LICs. Of them, as many as 60, i.e. about 71 per cent, had less than or upto 5000 volumes. Only 14 LICs reported sizable holdings of over 10,000 volumes. There were 6 public sector undertakings in this group.

As is well known, reports often constitute an important part of holdings of a technical library. Forty LICs reported the availability of this item in their holdings. Twenty of them, i.e. 50%, had upto 100 reports only, 5 had upto 500, 5 more upto 1000, 7 upto 7000, and only 3 had more than 5000 reports. In the last group of 3 LICs, 2 belonged to public sector undertakings. The largest collection of 87,500 items was available with the BHEL Technical Information Centre.

Periodicals form another important component of the holdings of technical libraries. Eightyeight enterprises were able to specify the number of periodicals they were getting, in the correct manner. On analysis of the returns, it was observed that as many as 48 of them (over 54.5%) were getting upto 50 titles only, and 20 more LICs were getting 60 to 100 titles. In the lowest range 12 LICs were getting 3 to 10 titles only. In the higher range, there were 9 LICs with an intake of 101 to 150 titles, 5 LICs with 151 to 200 titles, 1 LIC with 208 titles, 3 LICs with 251 to 300 titles, and just 2 LICs with more than 300 titles. The 2 LICs in the last category were of the Christian Medical College (with 604 titles), a non-industrial establishment, and the Electronics Corporation of India (with 425 titles) a public sector undertaking. Apart from this, 5 more LICs of public sector undertakings were getting 100 or more titles. The remaining 6 public sector LICs were receiving 36 to 60 titles.

Patents and standards are surely two more important types of documents for industrial or technical libraries. 30 enterprises reported the availability of patents in their library collections, out of which figures for 26 LICs were available. Of them, 5 LICs were having less than 50 patents and 12 LICs had 500 or less number of patents with them. 7 LICs had more than 500 but less than 1000 patents in their collections. The remaining 7 were having more than 1000 patents with them. Of them, the largest collection, 9195 patents, was available in the LIC of the public sector BHEL Technical Information Centre. The next three enterprises in the top slot were the Hindustan Photo Films, with 5995 patents, J K Synthetics Ltd., with 4000 patents, and the Colour-Chem Ltd., with 3500 patents. The first two are public sector enterprises and all the four reported `manufacturing' as their main activity. In addition, the first establishment reported `research' and the second `research and education' as their other activities.

Although 60 LICs reported availability of standards in their collections, figures for the same were available for 58 of them. The distribution by number of standards was as follows: 22 LICs were having 5 to 500 standards, of which as many as 8 were having upto 50 and 5 more upto 100 standards only. In the next slab of 501 to 1000 standards, there were 4 LICs only and as many as 17 LICs in the next higher slab of 1001 to 5000 standards. Ten LICs came in the slab of 5001 to 10,000 standards, of which 6 LICs were actually having upto 6000 standards only. Finally, in the top most slab of over 10,000 standards, only 5 LICs could be counted. These were (i) BHEL Technical Information Centre (51,200 standards); (ii) Bokaro Steel Plant, Central Library (51,200 standards); (iii) Engineers India (21,840 standards); (iv) Electronics Corporation of India (17,063 standards); and (v) Kirloskar Electric Co. (10,083 standards). It is significant that the first four of them are public sector undertakings.

Very often scientists, technologists, and top management require relevant articles and other documents in languages other than English translated into English. Enterprises which have foreign collaboration or are in the export business usually get such documents. Returns indicated that 21 LICs were having translated material in their collections.

Another important kind of document for a technical library is usually drawings and maps. In the present study, 19 respondents reported the availability of such documents in their LIC collections. 16 LICs had less than 400 such items. The remaining 3 had more than 1000 such items.

4.1 Non-Documentary Materials

Analysis of returns about the availability of non-documentary materials revealed that 29 LICs had some audio-video items, 9 had CD-ROM materials, 5 had magnetic tapes/floppies, 17 had materials in microforms, and only 2 mentioned about some slides. Of the 29 LICs having audio-video materials, figures for 26 were available. Ten of these were having 1-10 such items; 10 more were having 11-100 items; and 6 had more than 100 items. The 3 LICs reporting the highest number of audio-video items were those of (i) The Madras Refineries Ltd (350 items) (ii) the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (260 items) and (iii) the Hindustan Photo Films Mfg. Co. (209 items).

Of the 9 LICs reporting CD-ROM materials in their collections, the highest returns were from those of BHEL Technical Information Centre (50 items) and Sun Pharma Advanced Research Centre (40 items). Both of them have R&D components.

Of the 5 LICs reporting availability of magnetic tapes/floppies, figures for 4 of them were available. The Sun Pharma was again at the top with 100 tapes and an annual intake of 15 tapes. Only 2 LICs reported the availability of some slides in their holdings. They were from the All India Heart Foundation (124 slides) and the Jyoti Ltd (353 slides).

4.2 Information on Electronic Media

Information on Electronic Media was taken as the third component to assess the information base of the LICs. This component again was considered in three parts - - CD-ROM, Databases on magnetic tapes/floppies, and Access to online information facilities.

So far as CD-ROM media is concerned, there were 8 positive responses. The emphasis was clearly on the acquisition of abstracting/indexing and current awareness (Current Contents) services. Four LICs were getting the MEDLINE. One LIC was getting a primary periodical, viz, the New England Journal of Medicine, in CD-ROM media.

On the availability of databases on magnetic tapes/floppies, there were 14 positive returns. Some of the respondents reported the availability of databases created in-house while others had commercially available databases. Databases created in-house were mostly of records of books, patents, reports, journal titles, standards, etc.

The response to the question of access to online facilities was far better. There were as many as 22 positive responses, indicating the names of datahosts and their use rate. Analysis revealed that Dialog was the most widely used datahost. As many as 15 LICs were using this datahost, while 5 were using the STN. The Dabur Research Foundation was found to have 3 datahosts. In all, there were only 5 enterprises which were having information in all the three forms of electronic media.

4.3 Subject Specialization of Holdings of LICs

The main subjects and the number of LICs reporting documents in them were found to be as follows: engineering, including civil, electrical, mechanical, structural, power generation, automobile engineering (47 LICs); chemistry, including analytical, organic, physical (21); chemical engineering and chemical technology (12); pharmaceuticals (10); polymers, synthetic filament/fibres (8); management (28); metallurgy (8); computers (17); electronics (9); quality control/assurance (5); biotechnology (5); paints, dyes, etc.(4).

5. Status of Automation in LICs & Infrastructural Facilities

The status of automation will be best indicated by the following figures: (i) Yet to start (38 LICs); (ii) Just started (24); (iii) Partially implemented (18); (iv) Fully implemented (7); (v) No response (8). Thus, it could be said for certain that 49 LICs (over 50 per cent) had made a beginning in library automation. It was also observed that 43 LICs were having computer facilities exclusively available to them. Others were using such facilities available within the parent organisation or outside.

It was obvious that automation in LICs was mostly PC-based. The most widely used hardwares were PC/AT 486, PC/AT 386, and PC/AT 286. At the same time the most widely used software packages were: dBase, Wordstar, Lotus, CDS/ISIS, Windows, and MSDOS. Their popularity was in the same order.

5.1 Other Equipment Available

In addition to computers, most of the LICs had other equipment also, which are considered important for providing efficient services. The equipment and their distribution were as follows: (a) Out of 67 responding enterprises, 61 had photocopiers, (b) 16 LICs had microfilm/fiche readers, (c) 9 LICs were having microfilm/fiche reader-printers, (d) 18 LICs possessed CD-ROM drives, and (e) 17 enterprises reported the availability of other equipment, such as projectors, duplicating machines, TV/VCR, modem, fax, scanner and so on.

5.2 Space Available with LICs

Out of the 89 responses on the location of LICs, it was observed that in 80 enterprises the LICs were located in their respective main buildings; in 5 cases they were located in independent buildings; and in the remaining 4 cases the LICs were located in the R&D or quality control buildings.

So far as the extent of floor space occupied by LICs is concerned, returns were available from 79 respondents. Analysis of the same gave us the following picture: (a) There were 44 LICs (55.6%) which occupied upto 100 sq.m. of floor space, with 6 of them occupying upto 10 sq.m. only, (b) There were 30 more LICs, which occupied 101 to 1000 sq.m. of floor space, with 17 of them having 200 sq.m. only, (c) Only 5 LICs were occupying more than 1000 sq.m. of floor space. The public sector Bokaro Steel Plant was at the top in terms of available space for its LIC. It had under its occupation 4000 sq.m. for its Central Library and an additional 192 sq.m. for its Technical Library.

It may be emphasised that a typical technical library usually does not require large space for its stack room or reading room. It requires just enough space for its limited stock of holdings and some operational space for providing the services.

6. LICs Users

Only 60 LICs were found to have given the number of users, both amongst in-house staff and outsiders. 34 more just mentioned `yes' or `few' and one did not respond. According to the membership figures, the 60 LICs were distributed as follows: 18 LICs were having upto 100 in-house members; 21 LICs were having 101 to 500 members; 10 were having 501 to 1000 members; and the remaining 11 LICs were having above 1000 members. At the lowest slab there were 2 LICs with 15 members each and in the highest slab the library of the Hindustan Photo Films Mfg. Co. reported a membership of 20,353. Apparently, the figure appears to be for the total staff strength of the company.

The above was relating to in-house members/users only. On the question of entertaining outside users, 43 respondents clearly mentioned that their library/information facilities were not extended to outside users. There was response from 22 others, indicating in a manner that they too had no provision to entertain outside users. The remaining 30 LICs only had outside members/users also. Most of them reported less than 100 such users. However, the Technical Information Centre of the BHEL reported 500 outside users of its facilities as against 600 in-house users. Indeed, a very high percentage of outside users.

It was also observed that almost all the 30 LICs, except only two of them, which extended their services to outside users, were not charging any fees from them.

7. Type of Services Provided by LICs

As could be expected almost all LICs were providing lending services. On the provision of interlibrary loan service 49 respondents checked `no', 17 did not respond, and only 29 checked `yes'. This may appear strange in view of the current thinking and efforts being made in networking and resource sharing. However, it has also to be pointed out that one prerequisite for any library to get into any kind of resource sharing arrangement with other libraries is to have a good collection. It must be in a position to offer something to others. Only then it would be in a position to draw on the resources of others. In the present study sample there are quite a few LICs, as has been pointed out, which do not come to this level due to their meagre collections.

7.1 Library Services

Under this head only two services were considered, namely Reference service and Referral service. The findings were as follows: Reference service was being provided by 77 LICs to the in-house users, while 29 of them were extending this service to outside users also. Referral service was being provided by 53 LICs to in-house users, while only 14 of them were extending this to outside users also.

7.2 Documentation/Information Services

Under this head 10 more services were covered. These were abstracting, indexing, bibliographic, nonbibliographic, digests, current awareness services (CAS), selective dissemination of information (SDI), technical enquiry, translation, and audio-visual services. There were 77 responses. The scores against each service was as follows:

(a) Abstracting service was being provided by 31 LICs to in-house users, and was also available to outside users in 3 cases

(b) Indexing service was being provided by 33 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in 4 cases

(c) Bibliographic service was being provided by 31 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in 5 cases

(d) Non-bibliographic service was being provided by 15 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in 2 cases

(e) Digests service was being provided by 14 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in only one case

(f) CAS was being provided by 42 LICs to in-house users and also to outside users in 2 cases

(g) SDI service was being provided by 30 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in 5 cases

(h) Technical Enquiry service was being provided by 41 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in 10 cases

(i) Translation service was being provided by 17 LICs to in-house users, and also to outside users in 5 cases

(j) Audio-visual services were being provided by 16 LICs to in-house users, and were not extended to outside users.

From the above it would appear that CAS and technical enquiry are the two most important services for the clientele served by the LICs. One interesting aspect of technical enquiry service was that at least 10 LICs reported that this was extended to outside users also, unlike other services.

7.3 Reprographic & Computerised Information Services

As was stated earlier, in Section 5.1, photocopiers were available in 61 LICs. Strangely, only 37 LICs reported the availability of reprographic service with them. However, this service was also extended to outsiders by 12 LICs. This is significant.

Computerised Information Services were considered in three parts — (i) Offline search of database (ii) Online search of database, and (iii) CD-ROM database search. The scores for these individual parts were as follows: Offline service was provided by 20 LICs to in-house users and extended to outsiders in 2 cases; Online service was provided by 17 LICs to in-house users and extended to outsiders in one case; and CD-ROM search service was provided by 9 LICs to in-house users and extended to outsiders in 5 cases. All the three services were available together in 5 LICs only.

8. Databases Developed, Publications & Interdependence of LICs

Analysis of returns revealed that 14 LICs had developed their in-houses databases. Together, they had mentioned 39 databases. Most of these were of the obvious variety of records of books, periodicals, patents, standards, etc. Another variety was index of relevant documents, like articles in periodicals pertaining to the interest of the host institution. All these are essentially bibliographic databases. There were a few nonbibliographic databases also.

8.1 Publications

Fifteen enterprises had reported 55 publications, between them, of both serial and adhoc varieties. Most of these publications were intended for in-house use and hence unpriced. Quite a few of these were typical library/information centre bulletins listing new addition of books, patents, standards, etc. There were also some abstracts, digests, current awareness and bibliographical services. There were also a few regular journals, and popular science booklets.

8.2 Interdependence

It is a fact that no library/information centre can aspire to meet all the requirements of the parent organisation. All LICs have to depend on others for different types of material, information, and services from time to time. Industrial LICs appear to be no exception. To the twin question of, which were the other LICs being used by the respondents and also which LICs were using the respondents' LIC facilities, there were 77 positive responses. Analysis of returns revealed that the names of some libraries/information facilities, which were being used by the LICs under study, were mentioned with striking regularity. Thus, IITs were mentioned as many as 34 times. It may be recalled that 54 enterprises included in the present study were from Maharashtra and 42 of them were from Mumbai. Hence, IIT Bombay was being used by 24 enterprises, while IIT Madras and IIT Delhi were being used by 6 and 4 more institutions. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore was mentioned by 6 enterprises.

However, next to the IITs, the most used facility was that of the British Council Library at different locations. This was mentioned as many as 18 times. It is remarkable that this library with its moderate but well balanced collection, limited but fully service oriented staff is able to meet the information requirement of different categories of people.

Another widely used library facility in Mumbai was that of the University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT). It was mentioned 11 times. Incidentally, our national facility i.e. INSDOC, was also mentioned exactly 11 times. Two more institutions, with more specialised service, namely the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Indian Patent Office, Nagpur, were mentioned 12 and 5 times respectively.

The position of the information facilities of the CSIR laboratories was found to be as follows: As has been mentioned above, INSDOC was mentioned by 11 enterprises. The NCL, Pune was mentioned 7 times, followed by NAL and CFTRI, which were mentioned 3 times each. The other CSIR laboratories, mentioned were the PID and CSIO (2 times each) and ITRC, CSMCRI, NML, CLRI, and CSIR Complex, Chennai (once each).

The above analysis of the nature of interdependence clearly indicates that most industrial enterprises do freely use the library and information facilities of academic institutions, e.g. IITs and UDCT, and also research institutions, e.g. CSIR laboratories.

9. Manpower

Of the 89 respondents who indicated the manpower position in their LICs, it was observed that as many as 25 of them were being run by single person each. Only 9 of these do-all-librarians were trained in library and information science (LIS). Similarly, 18 LICs were being manned by two persons each and 14 of these had at least one person trained in LIS. Of the remaining 46 LICs, 15 had 3 persons each and in 9 cases had LIS trained persons, in some cases more than one. Only in 31 LICs there were staff of more than 3 persons of different abilities. In these LICs the manpower position was as follows: 18 of them had 4 to 10 persons, 11 had 11 to 20 persons, and 2 had more than 20 persons. The 89 enterprises responding to the question had only 104 persons with LIS qualifications, 42 persons with computer science background, and 98 persons engaged in administrative/supporting duties.

Broadly speaking, hardly any general pattern was observed in the employment of staff in the LICs, except that industrial libraries do not employ many persons. However, those enterprises which have some component of research and consultancy in their activities are obliged to employ more technical persons to provide the necessary services.

10. Expenditure on Information Resource Buildup

The expenditure considered was confined to five sub-heads, namely, book acquisition, periodicals acquisition, non-print material acquisition, acquisition of equipment/furniture, and recurring items (stationeries, consumables, etc). There were 82 responses.

As many as 61 enterprises were spending upto Rs.10 lakhs annually on information resource buildup. Out of these, 19 were spending less than one lakh of rupees annually. Considering the prevailing high price of every item, the amount spent by them would appear to be a mere pittance. In the top slab of more than Rs.20 lakhs annual expenditure, there were only 5 LICs. These were the Engineers India (Rs.47.16); Christian Medical College (Rs.45.33 lakhs); BHEL Technical Information Centre (Rs.34 lakhs); Southern Petrochemical Industries Corp., Tuticorin (Rs.30.55 lakhs); and Dabur Research Foundation (Rs.20.60 lakhs).

As could be anticipated, most of the LICs spent more on the acquisition of periodicals than on books. But these were the two main heads of expenditure. However, there were a few exceptions also. One interesting example was the LIC of the Indian Aluminium Co. Ltd, which spent Rs.1 lakh on books, Rs.1.80 lakhs on periodicals, but Rs.3 lakhs on acquisition of non-print material.

The average annual turnover of all the establishments was calculated to be Rs.103587.5 lakhs and the same for the 12 public sector undertakings was Rs.318826.5 lakhs. On the other hand the average annual expenditure on information resources buildup was Rs.6.80 lakhs for all the enterprises and the figure for the public sector undertakings was Rs.13.25 lakhs. Apparently, there is hardly any comparison between these two sets of figures.

11. Epilogue

The study, even though limited in scope, can be said to have presented a representative sample of LICs in industrial enterprises. Most of these LICs have small collections and the emphasis is clearly on the acquisition of patents, standards, reports, etc rather than on books and periodicals. At the same time, it was observed, LICs change their nature when their parent enterprises have some research or consultancy functions in addition to manufacturing.

From the data it becomes evident that some of the LICs have started acquiring computer facilities, CD-ROM search facilities, on-line access facilities, and have started adding non-print material in their collections. Surely, they are moving in the right direction. However, it has to be pointed out that in their efforts towards modernisation, the LICs would do well to take the help of professional expertise by engaging more LIS trained persons with experience in the field.

That every enterprise has its own information needs has been clearly brought out by the dependence of each LIC on a number of other LICs, which are attached to mainly academic and research organisations. However, to be able to have better information service, most of the enterprises will have to strengthen their own information infrastructural facilities and resources which, in turn, would mean spending a little more on LICs.