![[RSS]](http://www.mySiteFeed.com/images/rss.gif "Add the RSS feed to your RSS reader by dragging and dropping this icon onto the address box of your RSS reader"){kind=small}
![[Google]](http://www.mySiteFeed.com/images/add-to-google-plus.gif "Click to add the RSS feed to your Google account"){kind=small}
Library Philosophy and Practice 2010ISSN 1522-0222Information Access Patterns of Faculty in Arts and Sciences Colleges in ChidambaramT. Prabakaran Dr. P. Ravichandran M.G. Sathiyamurthy Dr. K. Vijayakumar Dept. of Library & Information Science | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
IntroductionInformation is an essential raw material for all human endeavours in a complex modern society. It is recognized as a prerequisite for scientific, socioeconomic, and cultural development. Information may be stored in many different ways, including print and electronic. Information has been called one of the “eight M's” – men, material, machinery, money, method, market, movement and message, a term used for information. The second Law of Library Science reads: “Every Reader his/her books”. It conveys the message to the librarian that readers coming to the library in search of information must have it. A user study is a systematic examination of characteristics and behaviours of users of an information system (Prasad, 1992). The term “user study” focuses on information use patterns, information needs, and information-seeking behaviour. Information- seeking behaviour and information access patterns are areas of active interest among librarians and information scientists. Classification of User StudiesUser studies have been classified in different ways as shown below:
User studies include Babu (1994), who writes on the use of information and libraries by university instructors. Sethi (1990) looks at the information-seeking behaviour of social scientists in India, while Prasad and Tripathi consider both physical and social scientists. Satyanaranayan looks at the effect of information needs on library planning, and Sridhar (1999) considers the relationship of user visits and length of stay. In this paper, the authors have studied the information requirements, usefulness of library resources and services, and problems encountered by faculty members of two arts and science colleges, Government Arts & Science College and Sri Raghavendra Arts & Science College, Chidambaram. The Faculty of Arts comprises the departments of Tamil, English, Economics, Commerce and Business Administration. The Faculty of Science includes the Department of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Statistics, Biochemistry, Computer Science, Microbiology, Botany, and Zoology. History of CollegesGovernment Arts & Science College, Chidambaram, was established in 1982 in Old Hospital at Chidambaram, Cuddalore District. It moved to a newly-constructed building at C. Mutlur in August 1987. Initially the college was affiliated with University of Madras, and it is now affiliated with Thiruvalluvar University of Vellore. The mission of the college is to provide value-based higher education to rural and village students. The college has a well established library with good collection of 19,000 books on arts and science subjects supporting teaching and research activities. Sri Raghavendra Arts & Science College, Chidambaram, was founded in 2000. The college is located on 15 acres at Keelamoongiladi and is affiliated with Thiruvalluvar Univrsity, Vellore. Its mission is also to provide value-based higher education to rural and village students. The college has well-established library with 45,000 books available in eight Arts & Science department to support teaching and research. ObjectivesThe objectives of the study are to:
MethodologyThe study was based on data collected from the arts and science teaching community using a questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted and then the questionnaire was distributed personally to each faculty member of the two arts and science colleges. When the completed questionnaires were collected, respondents were interview to get their opinions on the improvement of library services. Limitations of the StudyThe study was restricted to faculty members, includeing lecturers, senior scale secturers, selection grade lecturers, and readers. ResultsTable 1: College-wise faculty strength
Values in parentheses indicate percentage. Government Arts & Science College has 25 lecturers, 2 senior scale lecturers, 10 selection grade lecturers, and 6 readers. Sri Raghavendra Arts & Science College, which is only 10 years old, has 24 lecturers. Table 2: Frequency of library visits by faculty members
Values in parentheses indicate percentage. Table 2 reveals that more than one-third visit daily, and nearly one-fifth once a week.
Nearly half spend less than an hour, while another two-fifths spend two hours in the library when they visit.
Nearly half of respondents use the College Library, with smaller numbers using departmental, public, special, university, district central, and personal libraries. Table 3: Types of documents used
Values in parentheses indicate percentage. More than half of respondent use books, with another one-fifth using reference sources, and smaller numbers using periodicals, theses, projects, and conference proceedings. Table 4: Purpose of visit to library
Values in parentheses indicate percentage. About half of respondents visit the library to prepare for class, while more than one-fifth do so to update knowledge. Table 5: Mass media
Values in parentheses indicate percentage. About half the respondents use television as a source of information, and just over 40 percent use the Internet. Table 6: Use of library catalogue
Note: Figures in parenthesis indicate percentages. Most respondents were not satisfied with the library catalogue as a means of information retrieval. ConclusionThe findings of this study include that most faculty in both institutions are Lecturers. More than half visit the library daily or once a week and use books or reference works most often. They generally visit the library to prepare for classes or to update their knowledge. The mass media most often used are periodicals and the Internet. The library catalogue is not a satisfactory means of information retrieval for most respondents. RecommendationsThe following recommendations are made in view of the findings of this study. They are meant to help librarians and users of the college library maximize the use of its resources, and help users with their extensive reading and intensive research.
AcknowledgmentsThe authors are thankful to the authorities of the Annamalai University for the facilities provided and grateful to Dr. K. Vijayakumar, Senior Lecturer (Library and information Science) for corrections to this article. ReferencesBabu, A. D. (1994). Information generation and library use by university teachers . New Delhi: Gyan. Sethi, A.R. (1990). Information-seeking behaviour of social scientists: An Indian perspective . Delhi: Hindustan Publication Company. Prasad, H.N., & Tripati, M. (1998). Information seeking behaviour of physical scientists and social scientists: A report. Annals of Library Science and Documentation 45 (2): 41-48. Satyanaranayan, M. (1997). Information needs planning on effective library. Indian Journal of Information & Library Science10 (2). Sridhar, M.S. (1999). Pattern of user visit, movement, and length of study in a special library. Annals of Library Science and Documentation 36 (4): 134-138
|
