Behavioural Aspects of Postgraduate Students in Using Electronic Information Resources at the Library Eastern University, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The introduction of computer technology in university libraries has made possible the use of information resources via the Internet or Intranet. Since the poor usage of digital resources by students as well as the staff of universities has strained these innovative efforts towards the next information era, there was a need to carry out research to examine the behavior in utilizing electronic information resources in higher educational institutions. The main objective of this study is to examine the behavioral intention to utilize electronic information resources by postgraduate students at the Eastern University, Sri Lanka (EUSL), applying the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. The study was tested with a conceptual model using 208 postgraduate students. The study revealed that the facilitating-conditions and effort expectancy are highly significant to students’ behavioral intention to use electronic information resources at the library. Students’ computer experience moderated the relationship between facilitating-conditions and intention to use. The intention-to-use behavior highly impacts on students’ usage of electronic information resources. The developed model will assist other researchers to understand the students’ behavioural intention and influencing factors in respect to introducing new innovative technologies in libraries and it could be used by other higher education institutions to make decisions related to the investment in the modern library systems. Hence, this study recommends further researches to be covered in all the Sri Lankan Universities in order to generalize the results and findings.