Access to electronic information resources by the academic community in Bangladesh has been limited mostly due to awareness and the huge cost associated with accessing such resources. This scenario has improved dramatically with the formation of UGC Digital Library (UDL) in June 2012. UDL is hosted by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh and is largely funded by the World Bank’s Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP).
The main aim of the UGC Digital Library (UDL) is to subscribe to electronic resources for themember institutions at lower rates of subscription that is being offered to the UDL. UDL operates on a non-profit basis.
The objectives of UDL are to:
- provide access to a high quality and scholarly electronic resources to all memberinstitutions at substantially lower rates of subscription and at most favorable termsand conditions;
- promote rapid and efficient access to scholarly communications to improve teachingand learning in the member institutions;
- impart training to the librarians, students, researchers and faculty members of themember institutions on subscribed electronic resources with an aim to optimize their usage;
- promote use of e-resources with gradual decrease in print subscription;
- promote interaction and inter-library cooperation among the participating members;
- evaluate the usage of the subscribed resources regularly and to identify newresources that are required to be subscribed by UDL;
- bring qualitative change in teaching, learning and research in the memberinstitutions with an aim to meet the ever growing challenges of globalization of higher education; and
- increase the research productivity of the institutions both in terms of quality andquantity of peer-reviewed publications.