Usage of Indexing and Abstracting Databases in Agricultural Libraries of Northern India

The purpose of the study has been to make an assessment of the usage of a selected set of Indexing & Abstracting (I&A) databases with an objective to work out the similarity or difference in use of I&A databases across the selected states of north India. An effort has also been made to see whether the users use a single or a combination of I&A databases. The investigator made a personal survey of seven sampled universities for collecting data about the questions under investigation, and questionnaire was used as a data-collection tool. The investigator also availed of the telephonic and e-mail communication and had a face-to-face interaction with respondents to collect prompt response, substantiate the responses and remove ambiguities thereof. Statistical package for social science was used to make analysis of the data on empirical basis. Chi Squared (χ²) Test has been used to derive association between the variables and test the level of significance. Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, followed by International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology, proves to be the leading I&A database across all the surveyed states and universities. However, there is a slight but statistically significant interstate difference in the use of different I&A databases under study. Further analysis of data shows that majority of the users use a single I&A database, whereas a good percentage of them uses more than one database to meet out their requirement.