E-Books : its accessibility, problems and prospects in context to science & technology libraries in India

The production and usage of e-books is growing at a fast pace and warrants serious consideration, especially in libraries and information centres of Indian universities, institutions of Higher Education, S & T Organizations and other institutions of national importance like IITs, NITs, IIMs, and IISc. They are actively engaged in building electronic information resources for providing value added services to users to meet their information needs . The paper discussed with various challenges facing by S & T Librarians and potentiality and future of e-books. It also discussed the role of e-book providers like Net Library, QUESTIA, Versaware, Abode E-Book store, CyberRead, E-Book Studio and many more. In addition to that the paper discuss the role of free e-book providers like Gutenberg Project, University of Verginia E-Book Library, University of Pennsylvania E-Books, National Academy Press etc. It also discussed the advantage and limitations of e-books in different environment like bandwidth, connectivity etc. Lastly, it suggests that there is need to formulate a workable and sustainable strategy in S & T Libraries. It also urgently needed that systematic efforts are taken to develop suitable information infrastructure for providing access to e-books. It can be concluded that there is need to formulate a workable and sustainable strategy in S & T Libraries. It also urgently needed that systematic efforts are taken to develop suitable information infrastructure for providing access to e-books.