Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture

Indian Council of Agriculture Research has 5 Deemed Universities, 2 Krishi Anusandhan Bhawans, 5 National Bureaus, 42 Institutes, 21 National Research Centres, 9 Project Directorates and 38 State Agricultural Universities. Thus, to provide easy access of select journals to the scientific community in all theses centres the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) has funded for establishing the Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA) at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.
CeRA is a part of the ongoing activities of the Unit of Simulation and Informatics (USI) which was set up in November 2003 by merging the Unit of Applications System Simulation (UASS), the Bioinformatics Centre and Internet Facilities. The USI is housed in A0 Block of the LBS building of the Institute. The IARI Central Library houses the CeRA office.
Objectives of CeRA
• To develop the existing R & D information resource base of ICAR institutes/universities, etc., comparable to that existing in world's leading institutions/organizations
• To subscribe e-journals and create an e-access culture among scientists/teachers in ICAR institutes/agricultural universities
• To develop a Science Citation Index Facility at IARI for evaluation of scientific publications
• To assess the impact of CeRA on the level of research publications measured through SCI
Documentary delivery systems are being at developmental stage and now being implemented at IARI, NDRI, IVRI and CIFE to enable those Consortium partners who do not have the print versions of particular scientific articles. This will aid in easy access of articles for research for all consortium partners. This initiative will have wide impact. Though till now it is not well known by researchers and students of all agricultural universities in ICAR, it will have tremendous impact in improving the quality of research and education as it will provide online accessibility of all important journals related to agriculture and biotechnology to researchers and students. We request all our esteemed readers to avail these facilities to enhance their knowledge and research quality improvement to aid personal growth and also growth of all the scientific community.