The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGHUS) has a launched the HELINET (new health science library, and information network ) consortium, the medical library in the country for e-journal access and resource sharing.

With the help of the new health science library and information network consortium, the university would provide access to more than 650 medical e-journals to all the medical colleges in the State and also reduce the financial burden on each college.

Dr. K M Srinivasa Gowda, registrar, RGHUS told Pharmabiz.com that international medical journals were essential learning resources for a quality education and the print edition of these journals were probhitively priced making it almost un affordable for most of the medical colleges.

Dr. Ram Raj Urs, librarian, RGHUS said that the average cost of an international medical journal would range from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 50,000 per annum and each medical college in the State was spending more than Rs. 25 lakh to subscribe to about 100 journals every year. However, with the launch of the consortium, the medical colleges in the State need to spend only Rs. 5 to Rs. 7 lakh per annum, he added.

Dr. Urs said that the University already spent Rs. 2 crore for establishing the consortium on a co-operative e-access model. For this purpose has set up a digital library infrastructure for managing and providing access to e-content, like e-journals, e-books and dissertations and more.

HELINET has a licensed e-journal access right for 600 medical journals from 24 leading international publishers for the medical colleges affiliated to the University at an annual investment cost of Rs,. 2 crore.

The university was also planning to convert this like a national level consortium by having a tie-up with the government of India and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so that all the medical science institutions in the country could access e-journal with less investment, said Dr. R Chandrashekar, vice chancellor, RGUHS. The next aim of the university was to access dental and pharmacy e-journals.

Already 25 medical colleges including all four government medical colleges in the State have been linked to the University to avail this facility.

Plans are underway to provide the accessibility to the e-journals to the associated user-groups like hospitals, nursing homes, medical practitioners in the future.