KARACHI, May 11: Under the Digital Library Programme of the Higher Education Commission, an online portal will be established through which all journals published in Pakistan will be made available for worldwide electronic access.

The portal allowing international exposure of research conducted within Pakistan will assist in the international peer-review process of indigenous publications.

Once implemented, ‘PJOL: Pakistan Journals Online’ will have a fully searchable web interface similar to that of any other international electronic journal database.

HEC’s digital library has achieved momentous achievements in 2006 through its various cross-cutting programmes and initiatives. It provided access to high-quality scholarly information based on electronic delivery to the higher education institutions.

In 2006, total downloaded articles from HEC national digital library programme were more than 2.2 million. Digital library usage has gone up by over 100 per cent from 2005 to 2006.

The digital library also conducted two studies during the last one year. In first study, Pakistani varsities were ranked on the basis of their research output in those journals which were internationally recognized. The second study titled, ‘Research ranking of universities on the basis of cumulative impact factors based on ISI Web of Knowledge’ was also conducted and advertised in April this year.

Besides, a priority initiative of the digital library programme has been taken to introduce the Electronic Library Information Navigator (ELIN) system linking the HEC with the Lund Libraries of Sweden.—PPI