Governance

All constituent college libraries are part of the VMRF Library System that operates through well planned policies, practices and a governance model fostering deep cooperation and sharing of resources. While constituent institutions maintain their financial and functional autonomy in managing their respective libraries through Library Committees headed by their respective head of the institution, VMRF Libraries Board, aided by the Central Resource Team functions as umbrella policy making and monitoring body at the apex level.

Library Resources

VMRF libraries, collectively house approximately 200,000 volumes of books, journals, and other print materials, and approximately 30,000 subscribed and 700,000 open access e-resources, covering a wide array of disciplines. The Digital Library will soon make provision for at least 200,000 more ebooks. The carefully curated library collections cover a wide spectrum of disciplines, ensuring that students from all fields of study can access the resources they need to excel in their academic pursuits. Policies and Procedures guide in the development and maintaining of the resources, ensuring that every library is regularly updated to aid in teaching, learning and research.

The VMRF Resource Provision Policy serves as the basis for the VMRF Libraries System, offering guidelines for the systematic development of print and electronic resources, complying with the requirements of regulatory and certification bodies, in an open democratic, technology enabled, and ethical oriented environment. Its aim is to facilitate access to the state-of-art and current knowledge to the VMRF community and to disseminate VMRF research to the global community. The policy envisages a rapid growth in electronic resources in the near future, where such resources will comprise at least 75% of the overall holdings in VMRF Library System. Already, all journal holdings are to be held in electronic format, unless necessitated due to regulatory requirements. A modest beginning in ebooks collection development, has been made by inducting about 75,000 ebooks recently, which is planned to reach about 3 lakh in near future. A large number of open educational resources, and proprietary digital learning resources are being planned to be made available through VMRF Digital Library platform to support the implementation of a university wide learning management system, and to catalyse hybrid and online learning initiatives.

The SOP Print Resources serves as a model for continuous procurement and seamless acquisition of resources for the libraries. It facilitates efficient and timely purchases, ensuring the swift supply of necessary resources to meet user needs.

The SOP Stock management ensures that each library is equipped with high-quality, up-to-date resources, supporting teaching, learning, and research activities effectively, through a systematic and regular renewal of the collection. A major programme to overhaul the print collection of libraries across all campuses has been undertaken recently.

The SOP E-resource purchases ensures timely and cost-effective acquisition of electronic h materials, whether subscribed, purchased or otherwise available in open access, and to facilitate, anytime-anywhere discoverability and accessibility of such resources, using user friendly and appropriate technology oriented mechanism.

The VMRF Digital Library

To complement our physical collections, VMRF-DU offers a state-of-the-art Digital Library Platform, designed to provide seamless access to a wealth of electronic resources, through meta search. Through this platform, students and faculty across all our institutions enjoy the convenience of remote access to a vast array of e-books, academic journals, research databases, and multimedia content, with a single-sign-on, from the comfort of their homes or while on the go. This platform ensures that our learners are never constrained by geography and can access their institution’s subscribed resources anytime, anywhere.

The VMRF Digital Library can be accessed at vmrf.refread.com

Copyright Compliance Policy

The university enforces a comprehensive copyright compliance policy to ensure fair use of library resources while adhering to intellectual property laws. The VMRF Copyright Compliance Policy can be accessed here.

Resource Sharing among VMRF Libraries

What truly sets VMRF Library System apart is the Interlibrary Loan System, an innovative feature that promotes resource-sharing across our extensive network. Through this system, students and faculty have the opportunity to access not only the digital and print resources of their own institution but also those available at every other constituent institution within the VMRF umbrella. This inter-campus collaboration, assisted by the CRT, expands the horizons of knowledge access and fosters a vibrant scholarly community that thrives on the free exchange of ideas and resources. An exclusive SOP on Resource sharing has been developed to guide this process in a smooth and efficient way.

User Feedback system

In order to ensure that the best quality of services is always provided through the VMRF Library network, VMRF has an extensive user feedback system. With an SOP for collecting regular feedback inputs from all users, the university strives to provide enhanced and best services to all the users.

Knowledge Base – institutional repository (under development)

VMRF is currently developing a full-fledged Institutional Repository called the Knowledge Base, overseen by the CRT, which will soon become functional.

The VMRF Knowledge Base aims to cover all kinds of contents representing knowledge in Research, Academic, Administrative, and outreach domains, in a searchable, distributed and controlled (administration, submission, review, access) environment. The following collections have been proposed to be part of the VMRF Knowledge Base:

• Research Work:Published papers, books, conference papers, author’s manuscripts of published papers, unpublished works, working papers, project proposals, research data (empirical as well as laboratory, clinical case studies), business case studies
• Student Research: Ph.D. and Master Theses and dissertations
• Literary Works by the staff and students
• Learning Material:Produced/co produced at VMRFDU institutions, Classroom recordings
• Conferences, Public Lectures, Specialist invited lectures, and related pictures, videos, other events
• Other Academic materialsuch as past question papers, Moot Courts material
• Laboratory and general Equipment: manuals
• Policies, & Procedures
• Meetings
• Promotional Material: Videos, brochures, posters
• House magazines, student journals, newsletters
• Training Material for staff and students
• Regulatory submissions
• VMRF Historical Archive

Annual Librarians Meet

The CRT organises an annual meeting for librarians and provides an extensive staff development program, with workshops and guest lectures. The inaugural VMRF Libraries Annual Meet and Staff Development Programme, was held on August 4th and 5th, 2023, at VMSDC in Salem, emerged as a resounding success. The event served as a platform for Librarians from VMRF DU Constituent Colleges to converge and explore new horizons in library science. It celebrated collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the evolving role of librarians in the context of an increasingly digital academic landscape

Future plans: Union catalogue

The VMRF Libraries aim to establish a Union Catalogue of all print and electronic resources, enhancing discoverability and access across the network. This initiative reflects VMRF's commitment to providing unparalleled information services to its academic community.

In every way, the VMRF library network embodies our vision of empowering students, researchers and faculties with the tools, resources, and information they need to succeed. Whether through the quiet sanctuaries of our physical libraries or the far-reaching capabilities of our digital platforms, we are committed to providing an unparalleled experience that inspires learning, research, and innovation.

LIBRARY BOARD