Abstract

Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behavior of Students in B. Ed. Colleges in Andhra Pradesh

P.V. Gopala Krishna Yadav, Dr. K. Ramasubbaiah

Volume: 15 Issue: 3 2025

Abstract:

The present paper is based on the study conducted to find the information needs and information-seeking behavior of B. Ed. College students in Andhra Pradesh. The researcher personally visited the colleges several times to collect the information and data. Due to the personal persuasion of the researcher, the response rate for the questions is 100 percent. In total, eighty questionnaires were carefully canvassed among 80 students, filled with information and data with due care. Responses acquired against the open-ended questions are analyzed qualitatively.

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References

• B. Ed. College students and administrators mostly seek information for lecture preparation, improvement of their personal competencies and current awareness.
• They mostly use books and monographs for seeking information, while they frequently use to discuss face– to-face with colleagues and friends as an informal source of information.
• They mentioned that they frequently acquire information resources from their institutional library.
• They use their personal collection or institutional libraries when they have an urgent need for some information.
• Major obstacles they face while seeking information is lack of computer hardware and software.
• Most of them use atmospheric communication technologies (Radio/TV), and telephone
• Most of them did not find different parts of research journals directly useful for their information needs
• They prefer English language for reading material, while print is the preferred format. Google is the most used search engine by them.
• Most of them have not received any formal training or orientation for using online information resources.
• Institutional libraries are fulfilling their information needs to some extent. They stressed that college libraries should be equipped with computers, CDs, Internet, and the latest research journals. Workshops and seminars should be arranged for them.
• Most of them opined that an information centre should be given functional freedom to a great extent for improving its services.
• As the college students frequently seek information for lecture preparation and improve personal competencies, from their college libraries but college library system is inadequate to fulfill their information needs. Keeping this reality in view, college libraries should be updated with better facilities and collections.
• College libraries should be provided with proper hardware & software and online access to related resources, as is the practice of university libraries.
• Keeping the dissatisfaction of respondents with college libraries in view, better services should be provided by the college librarians.
• Respondents’ demands for information sources must be given importance in order to improve existing services of the library.
• Formal training should be provided to the college faculty for using online resources. It is obvious from the acquired results that college faculty use books/monographs and face-to-face discussions with their colleagues & friends instead of college librarians; keeping this fact in view, college librarians should enhance their communication and interpersonal skills to provide better services.