ISLAMABAD, March 20: Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) digital library was being extensively visited by the researchers in the universities throughout the country. There had been a phenomenal increase in the total number of full text articles downloaded over the previous year by researchers in the universities from the digital library, said an official statement.

The statistics for 2004 showed approximately 100,000 full-text article downloads, while in 2005 the they had exceeded over 1 million, a ten-fold increase, indicating the increasing utilization of this invaluable resource, the statement said.

Public sector universities downloaded a total of 666,986 full text, with participating private sector universities and indigenous research institutions recorded approximately 350,000 downloads.

The rise clearly suggested that all the participating public, private and non-indigenous institutions had waken up to the immense potential offered to their researchers through this programme and had benefited considerably by being able to access the scientific and technological content.

The University of Karachi had the highest number of downloads (91,989), of which the majority (over 75,000 ) were from a single research institute H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry followed by Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad (83,426), University of the Punjab, Lahore (66,885), University of Faisalabad (55,410) and University of Technology, Lahore (55,225). Among the private sector universities, Lahore University of Management Sciences tops the list with 83,882 downloads, the statement said.

NED University of Engineering and Technology had only 14,190 downloads. National University of Science and Technology had 8,978 downloads while Mehran University of Engineering and Technology had 5,727 downloads.

According to an information brief by the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (Oxford, UK), the success of a digital library could be measured by calculating the cost per article download, the statement said.