Use of Electronic Information Resources by postgraduate students: a case study

The vast proliferation of Electronic Information Resources (EIR) has number of significant impacts on the use of print resources. This study describes the results of questionnaire based survey which was conducted to investigate the usage of EIR by postgraduate students of the University of Peradeniya. The study revealed that the majority (77%) of respondents had used EIR. The majority of postgraduate students use EIR for writing reports and users learned to use EIR by ‘self learning’ and by trial-anderror. The reading preferences and the use of print and electronic resources varied among users of Postgraduate Institutes/Faculty. Users were not satisfied with the electronic information services offered by the libraries and they strongly believed that currently available EIR were not properly utilized due to the difficulties/problems. Possible suggestions are upgrade facilities to use EIR, subscribe more EIR, and give more publicity to improve the electronic information services at the libraries. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 16, Issue 1, January 2012, Page 46-69 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v16i1.5197