JNU launches search engine for its students

New Delhi: The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has launched a Google-like single window search option in its central library, enabling students and teachers to access all resources, including books, newspapers and research material. The varsity's Vice-Chancellor S K Sopory launched the service, known as EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), at the inaugural session of a seminar titled 'Transforming University Libraries'.

"With relevancy-ranked results and an abundant amount of customisation options will allow JNU faculty and students and its research scholars, focus on the quality of the information found rather than spending time and energy on searching multiple resources.

"Only few very select academic institutions in India have facilities for single window search," the university said in a statement. This service linked with remote access facilities will enable students and teachers access the search option from their cellphones, tablets and laptops. The university librarian, Ramesh C Gaur said, "We wanted to find a service that would remove the barrier of having to figure out which databases to search so the library becomes more familiar and user-friendly."

This service will also enable students search information across 72 online databases, library catalogue, 20,000 electronic theses and dissertations, 8 lakh digital press clippings, 2,300 e-newspapers in 57 languages from 100 countries and over 2 lakh e-books, and all e-journals. Earlier discovery services were on trial for the last year-and-a-half, he said. A new JNU library website and several other websites were also launched on the occasion.