Role of Libraries in Research Productivity of Social Science Research Institutions: A Case Study Rath Prabhash Narayana1, Ranga Sarita2 1Deputy Librarian, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, prabhashrath@yahoo.com 2Librarian, Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research, saritaranga09@gmail.com Online published on 25 March, 2016. Abstract In India, research in Social Science dates back to the establishment of Universities across the country but the pace of research actually accelerated with the establishment of Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 1969. At present, research in Social Science is carried out in different categories of organizations such as specialized research institutions, Universities, Deemed to be Universities, Social Science departments in Institutes of National Importance such as IITs, IIMs etc. With a backdrop argument that libraries play a vital role in research output of social science research institutions, this paper tried to find out the use of libraries by researchers attached to two major social science research institutions in India, viz. the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE) and Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research (SPIESR) by studying the extent of availability of resources in libraries of these two research institutions out of the total number of citations of the publications of the faculty members of these two institutions. It was found that the percentage of availability of cited resources is not encouraging in the libraries of these two institutions and the percentage of availability of cited resources by respective faculty members of these two institutions is more in SPIESR when compared with GIPE. Top Keywords Social Science Research, Role of Libraries, India, Library Use, Open Access. Top |