Bulding national archive of conference abstracts: A piolt study on indian conference-abstracting database

Abstract

Indian Conference Abstracting Database (ICon-AD) is a growing database of abstracts of papers presented at conferences held in India. The ICon-AD was conceived keeping the status of Indian conferences and publication trends in mind. It is observed that not all conference organisers publish the conference proceedings during the conference or post-conference. But publishing conference papers holds importance because conferences always focus on the ongoing or futuristic trends of a particular domain. In this view, the ICon-AD was launched as to bring the abstracts of each paper presented at conferences on one platform. It aims to archive all the abstracts of the papers received from the conference organisers. The beta version of the project launched in January, 2014, has archived 1220 abstracts of 1597 authors. The pilot study on the project highlights processes related to archival and dissemination of conference abstracts, facts, figures, utilities, processes involved and limitations and opportunities for ICon-AD.