An Evaluation of the Collection and the Services of the National Libraries of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The overall purpose of this study is to examine and evaluate thoroughly, the collection, services and other relevant activities of the National Library of Sri Lanka.

The National Library of Sri Lanka possesses a very short history. Therefore the evaluation of its activities may be of use to determine its future progress. Further, this thesis has explored the details and given a brief history of the collection of the National Library .

Three types of questionnaires were used to collect relevant data for this study, in addition to the available literature on the subject. A precise questionnaire was circulated among hundred short term National Library users, to which eighty-eight users responded. The objective of the questionnaire was to find out users' satisfaction over the information available in the library, and other services. The objective of the questionnaire circulated among hundred long term National Library users was to get more details regarding the collection and services of the National Library.

Sixty four users responded to this questionnaire. The questionnaire which was sent to twenty six National Libraries and to which ten libraries responded, aimed at finding out details regarding collection, users, policies and evaluation studies etc. for comparative study.

The findings of the study show that the user satisfaction rate of the National library users is very high , although according to statistics, the user population is not very much.

The survey findings further reveal that the closed access system is approved by the majority of users. Although the author's basic idea was that the closed access system was the main factor responsible for under utility of collection usage, this could not be substantiated due to lack of a non-user survey.

It is observed that there are some areas which need improvement in the National Library, such as collection development, more access points to the collection, collection organisation, user/non user surveys, education and staff training ..

The major recommendations of this study are to train the staff, build up the collection in a more systematic manner and acquire library materials under the special committee appointed to assess cost effectiveness and other relevant factors. The other recommendations are to formulate a collection development policy and inter library loan policy, to conduct users' as well as non users' surveys, to focus on a specific target group, to give more publicity about the National Library, to keep the possible collections on open access, to maintain a separate rare book collection and a collection specific to South Asian countries.