Bibliographic Control of Indian Ph. D Theses: INFLIBNET’s contribution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abstract

By imparting higher education, conducting research and interacting with individuals and institutions at different levels within and outside India, our universities have been major contributors to the generation and dissemination of knowledge. Being one of the significant contributions to the growth of knowledge, research work produced in the form of Ph.D. theses is the unique vital information sources. It is estimated that nearly 8000-10000 Ph.D. theses are produced every year by all the universities put together in India. Being a vital source of information, Ph. D theses have been attracting a great interest from academic and research communities in the country and abroad. INFLIBNET has therefore made an effort to collect, organise and make available this valuable information over the network. The Centre is also developing union bibliographic databases of Books, and Serials available in Indian Universities, and non-bibliographic databases of Indian Projects and Experts in various fields. All databases can be accessed through the website http://www.inflibnet.ac.in. This paper makes an attempt to give an overview of activities carried out by INFLIBNET Centre for the development of Theses Database and its online access. It discusses the purpose, objectives, benefits, and various steps in development, access points, and search methodology of this online database with illustrative examples, in detail. It also points out the drawbacks and future plans for making theses resources available in Indian Universities available on the Web.