Usage and awareness of EIRs by the Islamic studies and Arabic language students at South Eastern University of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Low awareness of the Electronic Information Resources (EIRs) by the university library users were identified by number of Sri Lankan researchers. While there are ample numbers of studies on the e-resource usage by the university undergraduates, there is dearth of literature available on the undergraduates of Faculty of Islamic Studies and Arabic Languages undergraduates (FIA) at South Eastern University of Sri Lanka (SEUSL). This research sets out to study the usage and awareness about the EIRs by the undergraduate students of FIA, at SEUSL. The study is based on a questionnaire survey. Printed structured questionnaires were administered among 164 randomly selected undergraduate students of the FIA, drawing 15% sample of the total students of the faculty. The study established that to the certain extent the students are aware of the availability of EIRs. In total, 46% of first year and second year students are of the opinion that EIRs are not significant to their studies. 21% Final year students had accessed EIRs to find information in order to write their project reports, dissertations and assignments. E-articles (From Google Scholar particularly), E-databases and EIRs from Institutional Repositories (IRs) were among the top three EIRs final year students frequently used. Web sites, friends, library staff and lecturing staff were the main sources of information on EIRs. Out of the 28% of final year student who have used EIRs for their academic work, 19% had indicated that access to EIRs was learned by themselves by trial and error method. The study leads to the conclusion that majority of the users were not aware of the EIRs offered by the library. Possible suggestions are to upgrade facilities to use EIRs, and to provide more publicity to improve the usage of EIRs at university wide. It is also recommended to university libraries of Sri Lanka, in general, to increase user training programmes. Advanced search strategies should be included in these further trainings. It is vital to identify non-EIRs users. Selective Dissemination of Information services and awareness programmes should be initiated targeting them. Both library staff as well as university lecturing staff has a responsibility in promoting EIRs among the undergraduate students. Introducing information literacy skills across the university undergraduate curriculum and assigning coursework to use library EIRs would be beneficial. Outcomes of the research would be particularly of use to the library administration in planning library orientation programmes and workshops and when designing and planning library infrastructure to promote EIRs.