Attached
The Library, University of Sri Jayewardenepura as a well established academic library caters for
undergraduates, postgraduates, academic and non academic staff members of the five faculties of the
university. The library spends a large sum of money to purchase books, periodicals and e-databases
annually. In 2014 access was given to our users for five major databases through the consortium of
University Grants Commission namely Emerald, SAGE Research Methods, Oxford Journals, Taylor and
Francis and Wiley online and in addition for the subscribed database JSTOR.
The objective of the study was to examine the importance of IL ( Information Literacy) sessions
conducted by the library staff to the students with regard to the knowledge imparted on information
seeking aspects. With this objective library conducted sessions on e -resources. Though the library
conducts such programs for all the categories of patrons only the sessions conducted for undergraduates
were selected for the present study. Participants included third year and fourth year undergraduates of
Faculties of Management Studies and Commerce, Applied Sciences and Medical Sciences and the total
population was 308.
Content of the program covers Introduction to the library, Information Resources on different media and
types, steps in searching information, searching techniques and formulation of search strategy, Services
offered by the library and Library Website.
Pre assessment and a post assessment were done using questionnaires in order to evaluate the awareness
and use of library resources and to evaluate the session and to get their suggestions and recommendations.
According to the pre assessment it was found that 90 % of undergraduates have not visited the library
website before the session. 98% of them have not used the electronic databases available. 75% of the
participants have stated that they have used only “Google” for searching information for their studies. 9%
of the participants have used “Google Scholar”. 5% of them have stated that they are using databases but
names were not specified. Others have not indicated anything. 97% of them were not familiar with any
type of Advanced searching options such as Boolean, Phrase searching, Wild card characters and
Truncations. There is no difference among the 3rd and 4th year undergraduates, or gender wise or faculty or department
wise. Almost all have indicated that they use Google search engine to find out required information but
not the Google Scholar.
According to the post assessment, participants have evaluated the sessions were highly useful and useful.
99% of them felt that it would be much beneficial if they were given this type of sessions in their first or
second year of the course of study. All (100%) participants have confirmed that after the session they
would be able to retrieve information more efficiently and effectively using advanced search techniques
and use scholarly databases for their studies rather than using search engines.
Since the results of this study showed that poor awareness about the electronic databases among students,
there is a need to emphasize on that fact. One successful way is to collaborate librarians with teaching
faculty to reach the students. It can be of a continuum from one –shot programmes to a credit-based
module on information literacy.
