Author:

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the differences in information resource usage among the agriculture students in University of Peradeniya, so that remedial measured could be adopted to address the identified trends. A 10% sample was surveyed and the data were complimented by the information provided by published literature, statistics, faculty members and the library staff. Findings established that the Search Engines, Wikipedia, Classmates, Lecturers and Recommended Readings are used often by all but there is a variation in the usage across the academic years. Use of Recommended Readings, Library Collection, and Lecturers increased across the academic years while the use of their Personal Collections of material, and the use of Classmates, Friends and Family and the Librarians as an information resource decreased. There was no difference in the use of Search Engines across the years but the use of Wikipedia, and Government Websites decreased in the fourth year. The study proved that the students expect training from the library, and that there is a variation across the academic years in the topics they would like to learn about. The study recommends a well-planned information literacy programme for all the students of the faculty irrespective of their year of study. A limitation of the study was that it covered only what and how often aspects of the information resource usage but not why, due to time limitation, but elucidated the why of findings in the light of previous research. However, this paper is the first of its kind, which makes a comparative analysis of the information resource usage of the agriculture undergraduates in Sri Lanka.

Journal of the University Librarians’Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 19, Issue 1, October 2015, Page 6-31

Keywords: Undergraduates, Agriculture, Information Resources, Information Literacy, Wikipedia, Internet, Library, Sri Lanka