The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has set-up the “Indian National Digital Library in Science and Technology (INDEST) Consortium”. The Ministry provides funds required for subscription to electronic resources for 38 institutions including IISc, IITs, NITs, IIMs and a few other centrally-funded Government institutions through the consortium headquarters set-up at the IIT Delhi. Besides, 60 Government or Government-aided engineering colleges and technical departments in universities have joined the Consortium with financial support from the AICTE. Moreover, the INDEST Consortium, as an open-ended proposition, welcomes other institutions to join it on their own for sharing benefits it offers in terms of highly discounted rates of subscription and better terms of agreement with the publishers. All electronic resources being subscribed are available from the publisher’s Website. The Consortium has an active mailing list and a Web site hosted at the IIT Bombay.

The present information resource base of the IIM Consortium is as follows:

INDEST Consortium, in its special meeting held on April 18, 2003 at IIT Delhi has favourably considered the suggestion of the IIM Library Consortium to constitute a Special Interest Group (SIG) to take care of the consortium-based resource requirements of IIMs, Management Schools in IITs, IITs, IISc, NITIE, IIITM Gwalior, and other Management Schools/Departments of INDEST Consortium Members. Accordingly, the National Steering Committee of INDEST has constituted the SIG: Management Schools under the chairmanship of Prof. Pritam Singh, Director, IIM Lucknow.

The SIG comprise the following members:

1. Dr. Pritam Singh, Director, IIM Lucknow Chairman

2. Prof. Sushil, Dept. of Management Studies, IIT Delhi Member

3. Dr. Jagdish Arora, Librarian, IIT Bombay Member

4. Mr. Sreekumar, Librarian, IIM Calicut Member

5. Mrs. Chitra Rao, Librarian, NITIE, Bombay Member

6. Dr. Roshan Raina, Profesor, IIM Lucknow Coordinator

Member Institutions:

IIMs, Management Schools in IITs, IISc, NITIE, IIITM (SIG - Management Gwalior and other Management Schools/Departments of Schools), INDEST Consortium Members.

Objectives of the SIG :

The SIG: Management Schools shall try to explore, in line with the laid down objectives of INDEST Consortium, all possible ways and means of resource sharing of the Digital Databases (aggregated full-text as well as others), E-Journals and E-Resources being regularly subscribed to by the management schools of MHRD. The objective is to achieve optimum utilization, enrichment and enhancement of the academic resources, and to substantially minimize the expenditure and enhance the buying power of the academic institutions through consortia based subscriptions.