College Library

Genesis
The Library was started in 1972 with the inception of the College of Horticulture.
Objectives
• To provide reading materials to all the members of the College of Agriculture
• To impart information services to all users of the Library.
• To provide information retrieval services either online or offline in all areas of agricultural sciences
Physical Facilities
The Library is housed in an appropriate position of the Main Academic Block of the college, easily accessible from all Teaching Departments, Lecture Halls and Administrative Office.
The total carpet area is 512 square meters with 56 reading seats. The Library has individual reading carrels, and IT Zone for accessing e-resources.
The Library has acquired all basic Hardware and Software systems essential for modern library and information services. Library provides wireless access facility, through which Library clientele can connect their laptop and access our e-resources as long as they like.
Library Working Hours
The Library is opened for 8 hours a day, that is, from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, except on Sundays and public holidays. The circulation desk will function from 9.15 am to 4.40 pm. Reference and other services can be availed till 4.45 pm.
Membership
The Library provides regular membership to the Students, Teachers & Researchers of the College. Other staff members of the college also can avail the service of the library as and when needed. Outsiders are permitted for reference.
Library Holdings
1. Books : 32,847
2. Theses : 2132
3. SC/ST Book Bank scheme Books : 1,485
4. Gift Books :2008
5. Subscribed Journals : 12 nos Print, 3,000+ e-journals
6. National Dailies : 7 nos.
7. Magazines : 15 nos.
Annual Reports, Budget Documents, Research Reports etc. are also available in the Library.
Organization of the Collection
The Documents are classified according to Dewey Decimal classification and catalogued according the AACR II. The Library follows Open Access System.
Library Automation :
KOHA – The Open Source Library Management Software is using OPAC for user.
This software includes modules for cataloguing, circulation, and acquisition, serials, OPAC and member management.
D-Space- Institutional Repository Software
Library deploy tools to provide access to the collection
OPAC :
1. College Library OPAC & University Library OPAC
2. E-gateway for access to e-journals subscribed by the University and consortium
3. Electronic Resource Management package for e-journals:-
College Library has IP enabled access to online Journals under the CeRA (Consortium for e-resources in Agriculture) provided through NAIP and around 3000 foreign journals available through it. The major scientific journal publishers like Elsevier, Springer are accessible through CeRA. In the period of Lock Down, we have provided user id and password for accessing e-resources.
1. Indiastat.com
www.indiastat.com(link is external) is a gateway to comprehensive and authentic socio-economic statistical data about India and its states. Researchers, students, Scientists and faculties can easily access the data covering all major parameters for research study, review and reference purpose. Indiastat.com has 50 associate sites which include 19 sector specific and 31 India/State/UTs specific sites.
1. DELNET
Kerala Agricultural University has been an Institutional Member of DELNET (Developing Library Network). DELNET has the first major operational library network in South Asia. It has more than 4700 libraries as its members in India and eight other countries. DELNET provides access to more than 20 million bibliographic records of books, journals, articles, CDs etc. The Inter Library Loan (ILL) / Document Delivery Services (DDS) are one of the most popular services of DELNET. The ILL facility allows a library to get books on loan and also the photocopies of the journal articles at the rate of Rs. 2 per page. DELNET provides an array of facilities. DELNET's relentless efforts in resource sharing have proved extremely effective.
1. CABI e-Books
Teachers and students of all colleges under KAU can access CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International) e-Books published from the year 2000 onwards from their own institution and more over the same book can refer by different people at a time and they can keep the copy of the books as their own by downloading the same.
1. CAB Abstracts
The most comprehensive database of its kind, CAB Abstracts gives researchers instant access to over 10 million records from 1910 onwards, with over 350,000 abstracts added each year. CAB Abstracts helps researchers to build on earlier scientific work, learn from the past mistakes, learn from past techniques, assess long-term trends and changes, access valuable research about rare and infrequent events, find 'missing' pieces of research and gain insights into the past.
1. KrishiPrabha
KrishiPrabha is a full-text electronic database of Indian Agricultural Doctoral Dissertations submitted by research scholars to the 45 State/Deemed Agricultural Universities during the period from 1.1.2000 to 31.12.2007. This database listing about 7500 Doctoral Dissertations with a full text of about 6000 Dissertations.

Institutional Repository – Krishikosh : -
Krishikosh is a digital repository of accumulated knowledge in agriculture and allied sciences, having collection of old and valuable books, old journals, thesis, research articles, popular articles, monographs, catalogues, conference proceedings, success stories, case studies, annual reports, newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, bulletins and other grey literatures spread all over the country in different ICAR Research Institutions and State Agricultural Universities (SAUs). Under the ICAR's Open Access policy, Krishikosh provides ready software platform to implement all aspects of the open access policy, similar to ‘Cloud Service’ for individual institution’s self-managed repository with central integration. These two products of E-Grant (i) Krishikosh and (ii) IDEAL are used by all SAUs/DUs/CUs & ICAR Institutes.
Besides this, M.Sc. and Ph.D. thesis/dissertations (full contents) and summary of completed research projects to be submitted in the Krishikosh repository after completion of the work. The metadata (e.g., title, abstract, authors, publisher, etc.) be freely accessible from the time of deposition of the content and their free unrestricted use through Open Access can be made after an embargo period not more than 12 months.
(Available athttps://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in(link is external))
e-Granth
Strengthening of Digital Library and Information Management under NARS (e-GRANTH)' is a sub-project under component-1 of National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). National Agricultural Research System (NARS) in India comprises of Agricultural Research Institutions and Agricultural Universities. As a result of this project a Union catalogue of Kerala Agricultural University has developed using Koha – integrated Library management software. The entire database of books available in the Library made available online, using which, members can reserve any book using the passwords allotted to them.
Total Number of Computers for public access :
• 4 for internet browsing
• 2 for OPAC
• 4 for e- journals
• Internet band width speed :100mbps
• Institutional Repository : Yes
Krishikoshis the digital repository of KAU. Krishikosh is a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes digital material. (www. /krishikosh.egranth.ac.in).
Content Management system for e-learning – (COH Public)
Library LAN has been a part of Campus Wide Network, which has made it possible for the academic community of all the departments to access information from their location itself.
1. Participation in resource sharing networks/consortia
1. INFLIBNET
2. DELNET
Availability of remote access to e-resources of the Library
1. Indiastat
2. CeRA
3. Science Direct
4. CAB Abstracts
5. e-Books
6. Indian Journals.com
7. AgriInfotech Portal

Services
In College of Agriculture Library, the users are given assistance or instructions in the use of the library, including location of materials, use of OPAC, use of computers to access information, and the use of basic reference sources. Users are assisted to identify library materials. Ready reference usually refers to providing brief, factual answers to questions, such as addresses, statistics, phone numbers etc. that can be quickly located.
The Library provides all conventional services such as :-
• Book Loan
• Guidance in Literature Search and Use of Reference Books
• Reference Service
• Current Awareness Service
• Document Delivery Services
• Indexes & Abstracts
• Formal and Informal User Education Programmes
• Internet and Database services
• E-Journal Service
• Scanning and Printing Facility
These services are available with enough UPS back up.
• E-Mail Alert and other Web based Services: For the last several years, library is providing several web based services such as E-Mail Alert Services, Notification of new books added to the library, technical events and other news etc. Towards this purpose, the library maintains two E-Mail Groups, for Teacher Users and Students.
• OPAC : Library OPAC provides up-to-date information about libraries holdings’ and new additions.
• Reprography Services : Photocopying facility is provided on nominal charges as per user’s request.
• Inter Library Loan Services : Books/Journal articles which are not available in the library are acquired through DELNET databases.
• Compilation of Bibiliography : - Specific topic wise subject lists are provided on request.
• Plagiarism Checking : The Library provide Plagiarism Checking service for the M.Sc and Ph.D scholars. For this, Library using Turnitin software. Turnitin is an American commercial, Internet(link is external)-based plagiarism detection(link is external) service.
• User Orientation :- Orientation Programmes are conducted to create awareness among newly enrolled students about the library services. Such programmes are conducted by the library for UG, PG, and PhD students at the beginning of academic year. In addition, user orientation programmes are organized periodically to train the users about the online resources and services in the library.
• Students Book Bank Scheme : Under this scheme, books will be supplied to the students at a subsidized price. A maximum amount of Rs. 500/- per year per student is allowed as subsidy.
• Book Bank Scheme -SC/ST Students : - Under this scheme, the Govt. of Kerala has sanctioned the amount towards the purchase of books and book shelf under the SC/ST Book Bank Scheme for SC/ST students.
• INFLIBNET facilities :
1. Archives of Science Direct
2. E-journals from Elsevier, ACS, Nature
3. Inter Library Loan
4. Integrated Search
5. Shodhganga (Repository of Indian Theses)
6. E-Shodhsindhu (Consortium for Higher Education e-Resources)
7. Vidya – Mitra (Integrated e-Content Portal)
8. Vidwan (Expert Database & National Researcher Network)