Paul M Pandian, Institute of Mathematical Sciences and C R Karisiddappa, Karnatak University, India

 - makes the basic concepts of emerging technologies clear and their applications in knowledge resource management
 - examines the capabilities of emerging technologies for sharing electronic resources in a heterogeneous environment
 - reviews existing portal models available in commercial, research and development and open source environment
 - design and development of framework for a unified portal model for sharing electronic resources in distributed environment incorporating the potentials of emerging technologies in a cost effective manner
 - step by step guidelines for system analysis, requirements analysis – users and resources and system design

Examines various factors that contribute to an enabled environment for optimum utilisation of information resources. These include the digital form of information resources, which are inherently sharable, consortia as a concept to bring people and materials together and unified portals as technology to bring together disparate and heterogeneous resources for sharing and access. The book explores the capabilities of emerging technologies that support sharing electronic resources in a heterogeneous and distributed consortia environment. The book also provides reviews of existing portal models for sharing resources and identifies the gap in meeting the objectives. The book provides a framework for a cost effective unified portal model to share the electronic information resources available in the participating libraries in a distributed digital environment.

Readership: Information professionals, knowledge workers and librarians and postgraduate students.