Awareness and use of E-journals among Students and Faculty of Parul Group of

Institutes: A Survey

Dr. Dhaval D. BhattChief Librarian

Parul Group of InstitutesAt & Po. Limda, Ta: Waghodia, Dist. Vadodara-391760

(Gujarat) IndiaEmail: dhavalben@gmail.com

Advancement of E-journals during recent years has given librarians a powerful new resource to support learning and research.

Students and faculties are primary users of e-journals.

E-journals have revolutionized the research output. This is a case study conducted to study the

awareness and use of e-journals.

About Parul Group of Institute, Limda

Parul Group of Institutes is a hub of 17 self-financed institutes with three Homeopathic Medical Colleges, two Engineering Colleges, two Polytechnics, two Pharmacy colleges, MCA & MBA programs, an institute of Post Graduate Diploma in Management and Post Graduate courses for Engineering streams.

More than 2000 faculty members impart knowledge. Apart from Vadodara, affiliated institutes are located in

Ahmedabad and Rajkot.

“GYANODAY BHAVAN” (Central Library)

Library was established in 2003 with a collection of 4000 books.

Compared to other libraries in this region it is still in initial stage of development.

Presently the total collection comprises of 1,26,500+ books, 900+ journals which is housed in 10 branch libraries within the campus.

Library provides E-Resources IEEE Link Info track Engg Link Info track Pharmacy Link Info track Management Link DELNET resources

Subscribed NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning)

(http://nptel.iitm.ac.in) provides E-Learning through curriculum based online web and video courses

in Engineering, Science and Humanities

Objectives of the Study To ascertain the awareness of users about available E-journals. To find out the frequency of using E-journals. To study the purpose of using E-journals. To study the linking pattern of E-journals and use pattern for storage. To study the preferred format for using E-journals. To know the Barriers of accessing E-journals. To study the satisfaction level of users accessing of E-journals. To study the sufficiency of no. of E-journals available related to their

discipline/subject. To suggest suitable enhancement of E-journals facility. To study the benefits of using the E-journals.

Study has been carried out using questionnaire based survey method.

informal interviews were also conducted along with observations.

660 questionnaires were distributed among students and faculties.

612 questionnaires were received - 92.72% response.

Analysis Out of 612 questionnaires received back, 84.15% were students and only

15.85% respondents were faculty members. 64.66% of the students belonged to UG courses; 17.67% were in PG courses

and 17.67% were in Diploma courses. 59.48% respondents were aware about the E-journals whereas 40.52% of

respondents were not aware at all. 25.16% respondents wanted to access only electronic version of journals

whereas only 14.06% wanted both electronic and print journals. Majority of the respondents - 58.17% had less than 2 hours of access to

internet whereas 21.73% respondents had more than 2-3 hours of internet access.

39.22% respondents used E-journals once in a week, 23.03% used twice a week, 19.77% respondents’ were using Daily and some of them 12.91% used thrice a week.

55.23% used E-journals for studying their course work, 35.95% respondents used E-journals for updating subject knowledge, 22.22% used them for research work and 9.64% used for writing papers and 9.97% respondents use for updating their teaching skills.

37.25% respondents chose Home to access E-journals, 28.92% of the respondents preferred central library, 28.59% accessed from the Department, 14.38% accessed at the computer center and 5.56% accessed from other places from wherever they got facility .

50% used search engines, 34.15% searched E-journals through websites, followed by 16.83% through IEEE Link, 8.33% search E-journals through DELNET and 3.27% search through Info track Engg Link and 2.12% through Info track Pharmacy Link.

Analysis ….. contd

Analysis ….. contd

58.33% of respondents browsed after going through contents, 33.50% downloaded content into storage devices and 13.73% of respondents took printouts of E-journals

51.14% respondents preferred PDF format for using e-journals, whereas 39.05% had no preference at all and 12.75% of respondents preferred HTML format.

50.33% of respondents are satisfied to some extent, 34.31% respondents are fully satisfied. Only 8.50% users were highly satisfied and 6.86% respondents

were dissatisfied .

Analysis ….. contd

26.63% respondents are not using E-journals because of slow speed in downloading, 23.37% respondents are not familiar to E-journals, 17.16% respondents felt it time consuming; 15.36% did not use due to lack of training and 11.27% respondents because of insufficient number of E-journals in their subject. 8.99% because of lack of assistance from the information professionals, as they accessed from computer centre. 8.01% respondents because of unavailability of terminals in library and 6.54% respondents felt inadequate coverage in their area of research.

54.51% respondents felt the need of training programme, 23.53% required management’s assistance for using E-journals. 10.29% wanted UPS.

Suggestions received

E-journals should be accessible from any place Should be user friendly Internet needs to be speedy Accessibility should be easy Quantitative coverage of International Journals Training programs for users need to be frequently organized Subject wise list of E-journals required Internet facility should be expanded in all departmental libraries.

Recommendations

Awareness should be created for use of e-resources To increase interest among users e-content should be mailed Library homepage should provide direct link to publisher’s URLs to

save hassle of remembering password or URL. Workshops/seminars/lectures should be arranged in every

department from time to time. Library staff should the users help in overcoming the technical

difficulties faced while using E-journals. Subscription of more full text version of online packages to be

considered.

Conclusion

E-journals have opened up opportunities and potentials for academic libraries. It is on the part of the library staff to create more awareness about the E-journals availability among the users and provide them a friendly environment so that they can make better use of the facility

Save the time of users. Survey portrays Lack of training among users. This study will help librarian to convey importance of E-journals to the authority and to improve the services related to E-journals.

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