University Librarians Association Research Articles

Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by University Freshmen: With Special Reference to the University of Moratuwa

New coming students for universities are fundamentally different than in the past, because they have been spending their entire lives surrounded by and using ICTs. These students belong to the net generation and always looking for ICTs in each and every activity of their life. However, it is questioned whether all students are in the same level since they should be very fluent with ICTs to move in this 21st century confidently. This study is an attempt made to investigate the level of using ICTs by new coming undergraduates to the University of Moratuwa by examining the frequency of using ICT tools, self rated skill levels and finally their perceptions of the impact of ICT on academic experiences in the university. Twenty two (22) different ICT related activities under 4 main skill domains; basic computer usage, computer applications, Internet/E-mail use and use of technologies for research/academic activities were used for the study. The study is compiled with data from questionnaires of 338 first year students in three faculties; Architecture, Engineering and Information Technology. The study reveals that there is a rapid trend towards a higher ICT usage of university freshmen as digital natives. Majority of the first year students more frequently use computer applications such as word processing, Spreadsheets and Presentation packages. and they have rated themselves as highly skilled in computer applications. The male students reported to be in front in terms of usage of ICTs and level of computer literacy skills than female students. Freshmen from urban communities always believe that they are more skilful in this aspect. Architecture students are somewhat below than others in using ICTs as well as the level of ICT skills. Majority of freshmen believe that using ICTs may help them to improve their learning in the university and they are willing to use ICTs to find information on academic purposes. Recommendations have been made to enhance ICT facilities and programs for freshmen at university.Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 2, June 2014, Page 26-40

Comparison of Greenstone Digital Library and DSpace: Experiences from Digital Library Initiatives at Eastern University, Sri Lanka

On the decline of budgetary allocation for libraries, information is being made available to wider audience through alternative means, such as digital libraries and online repositories. Increasing demand for certain print materials urge libraries to exploit open-source alternatives, which are highly advantageous for libraries with scarce financial resources and voracious demand from their users. An interview survey results justified the establishment of digital library service as both students and academics, amongst other issues, recorded their inability to spare time for accessing certain print collections. In this regard, like other libraries in the country, the Library of Eastern University, Sri Lanka has initiated digital library initiatives using freely available software. Amongst a number of open-source software (OSS) available to create and manage digital library collections, Greenstone and DSpace are being experimented for developing two different types of repositories. However, these two software have slight merits and demerits over one another. This paper scrutinizes those features corresponding to the needs of and challenges faced by the Library of Eastern University, Sri Lanka (EUSL), which is in its initial stage of launching digitized collections representing both its academic works and local publications. The demand for unpublished works of students and past examinations papers is always high, hence, the Library is has started digitizing materials in demand and rare to find. This comparative analysis is solely based on experiences gained by the Library of Eastern University, Sri Lanka.Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 2, June 2014, Page 76-90

Developing an institutional repository: experiences at the library, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna

Institutional repository is a network accessible database, with a set of services to capture, store, index, preserve and disseminates an institution’s scholarly output in digital format. The main objective of the paper is to discuss the experiences in developing an institutional repository at faculty of medicine, university of Jaffna and suggestions to overcome the challenges. Further, to encourage the other universities in developing institutional repositories by emphasizing the benefits of an institutional repository in a university and also focuses on some key issues to be considered when developing a repository. The repository of university of Jaffna, faculty of medicine is functioning in the software D-Space with a dedicated server. Formulating collection policy, authority control of bibliographic details, checking the copyright policy and persuading the faculty members to deposit their publications were the major challenges focused in this study. More effort is needed to persuade researchers to deposit their publications. Librarians need to continue to educate them about the importance of institutional repository. Sharing experience in developing institutional repository would be useful to other universities. Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 1, January 2014, Page 39-50

Formulation of a training policy for the Library Assistants in Sri Lankan university libraries: a case study of the University of Peradeniya Library Network

A university recognizes that its staff is fundamental to its success. Moreover a library is the life blood of a university. The quality of a library depends on its staff. If a library collection is not well organized and qualified trained staff is not employed, an efficient service cannot be expected. Staff training is a critical and challenging task. Library assistants form the largest staff category in any university library. They perform a wide variety of duties from counter operations to the acquisition, circulation of reading material, technical services and assistance with administration. There are 50 library assistants in the University of Peradeniya library network and they provide assistance to all categories of readers in the university of Peradeniya library network. Unfortunately, however, there is no comprehensive plan or policy for the training of library assistants. This survey was, therefore, conducted to collect baseline information required to formulate a comprehensive training policy for the library assistants in University of Peradeniya library network. A questionnaire was used to gather data from 50 library assistants while the response rate was 82% (41 library assistants responded). The findings of the survey revealed that the library assistants have not undergone appropriate in- service training. Whatever training they have had has been of an ad-hoc nature in the form of short courses and workshops. The areas of training needs of the library assistants are basic skills on information communication technology, handling of electronic information resources, database searching, communication skills, Tamil and English language proficiency and skills on library technical service. All of these do not appear to have been addressed broadly in existing training programmes. The findings of the survey have been carefully studied and the issues raised competently analysed and the data have been used to formulate a comprehensive policy for the training of library assistants. The policy provides a framework that supports and encourages the development of all the library assistants of the University of Peradeniya library network. The policy document covers equal opportunities of the training, identification of training needs in accordance with the requirements of the library ( library assistants training needs can be identified in a number of ways), and responsibilities of the trainees and senior staff of the library. Training policy also includes specific areas of the training requirement of the library assistants. The main areas are upgrading the knowledge in the overall background in the library or division, ability to perform all library activities to maintain a high level of services to users, skills on counter operation, developing skills on library technical services such as acquisition procedure, cataloging, conservation preservation, basic knowledge on book binding, knowledge on Information Communication Technology and communication skills. Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 1, January 2014, Page 19-38

Librarians’ competency and willingness towards serving the users with disabilities: where do Sri Lankan librarians stand?

This paper presents the findings of a survey that aims at exploring the potential of Sri Lankan library professionals for serving the disabled users. Results revealed that the librarians are not adequately knowledgeable and sufficiently skilled to operate an inclusive service for people with special needs, though, they are extremely willing to do so. The paper also discusses the areas that should be strengthened in order to empower the librarians while highlighting the necessity of broadening the boundaries to welcome this very special group of users.Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 1, January 2014, Page 1-18

Bibliometric analysis of Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities

This study especially focuses only on the articles published in the “Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities” published by the University of Peradeniya. A total of 319 records of articles published in Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities and authored by 147 authors during the period 1975 – 2009 (inclusive) were analyzed in this study. The objective of this study was to study bibliometric characteristics such as distribution of publications, research growth rate, and authorship pattern “Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities”. The research method of this study was Bibliometric analytical method. Findings of the analysis revealed that distributions of publications vary over the period of study and English occupies as dominant language. Research growth of publications was increased with positive indicators. Majority of the contributions were single authored. Author productivity varied between the observed percentage of authors and expected percentage of authors as predicted by applying Lotka’s equation. Among the productive authors Peris, Merlin is in the top position with 26 contributions. In the ranked list of affiliated institutions, University of Peradeniya leads others. Zipf’s Law was proportionally matching with the frequency list of selected title words of this study.Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 1, January 2014, Page 51-71

A study on agriculture information generation and dissemination at the Department of Agriculture (DOA) in Sri Lanka

The paper discusses findings of a survey conducted at the Department of Agriculture to find out how agriculture information is generated and disseminated to the end users. The objectives of the study are to find out the type of research conducted at Horticultural Research and Development Institute ( HORDI), Field Crops Research and Development Institute (FCRDI) and Rice Research and Development Institute (RRDI) of the DOA, to find out whether the agricultural research conducted at DOA is relevant in addressing farmer’s problems, to find out the main methods used for disseminating new agricultural information to scientific community and farmers and to find out barriers for effective information dissemination to farmers. The data were collected by using a structured questionnaire. The total population taken for the study was 74. The analysis was carried out by taking the entire population together and separately by individual institutions. The survey revealed that the researchers in three research institutes of the DOA are regularly engaged in research focusing on local agrarian problems. The main research areas of the researchers were plant breeding, soil and water resource management, and agronomy and crop science. The research conducted by three research institutes of the DOA are hundred percent (100%) relevant to issues encountered in the agriculture sector of the country. Majority of researchers use, seminars/conferences as the main methods for dissemination information to scientific community. Majority of researchers (34%) at HORDI. thirty one percent of researchers (31%) at RRDI and thirty percent of researchers (30%) at FCRDI send their research output to the extension division in the DOA. According to the data, lack of extension staff has been identified as a main problem for effective transfer of research output to the end users timely, by fifty percent of researchers (50%) at FCRDI, forty two percent of researchers (42%) at HORDI and forty percent (40%) of researchers at RRDI respectively. The weak research/extension linkage has been identified as a barrier by twenty five percent (25%) of researchers both at HORDI and FCRDI and twenty percent of researchers (20%) at RRDI.Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, Vol. 18, Issue 1, January 2014, Page 72-86

Beyond the Boundaries: Remote Access to Online Resources at the University of Moratuwa Library

Though libraries have invested very high percentage of its annual budget to subscribe e-resources, limited attention was paid to ensure consistent and reliable access of those resources. Many library users access e-resources from outside of the University. Therefore many requests have been made to implement a remote access mechanism for e-resources. The objective of the study was to design a proper remote access mechanism to the users for accessing the e-resources provided by University of Moratuwa library. Publishers have provided access to eresources through Internet Protocol (IP) authentication and not by user identity (user ID) and password. This kind of access created many problems to the users specially for the postgraduate students who do not visit the University regularly as many users need to access e-resources from anywhere, anytime. Using the concept of proxy server, a joint project was conducted between the Center for Information Technology Services (CITeS), University of Moratuwa and the library to provide remote access. Existing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) was used to authenticate the user access. This allowed remote user to obtain regular, secure access to library e-resources. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 2, January 2013, Page 76-87 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i2.6646

Citation Analysis of Masters Theses: as a Tool for Collection Development in Academic Libraries

This study analyses the citations of Masters Theses on Sociology at the University of Peradeniya submitted from 1995 to 2012 to determine the format and age of materials used and most frequently cited journals. The citation analysis method was used as the data collection method and the citations were extracted from the title pages and reference lists of each of the theses. Data obtained from 12 masters theses were examined in June, 2013. The study found that 56% of cited items were monographs followed by 22% were journals, 8.5% were reports, 4% were web resources and 3.7% were conference proceedings. This is contrary with other citation analysis, which found that journals are the most frequently used format. The study also revealed that nine journal titles are the most frequently cited journals by sociology graduates. The study indicated that the average age of materials used was 10- 20 years. The findings and implications of the research for collection development have been discussed. This study could serve as a collection development tool that can be used as a model for the library to identify the primary sources for acquisitions and also as a guide for collection maintenance. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 2, January 2013, Page 88-103 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i2.6647

Evolution of the Bibliographic Control Systems and Genesis of the Concept ‘Documentation’: Contribution of Paul Otlet and Henry la Fontaine in 19th C.

The paper covers a review of evidence existing for documentation systems followed in the pre Christian literary history and during the 19th C. A special attention was given to the evidence of a most comprehensive cataloguing system followed in the Alexandrian library ‘the pinakes’ which had a great impact to cataloguing, indexing and documentation tradition thereafter. Even though the concept ‘documentation’ was not introduced at that time during the 1st century to date, many attempts were made to capture the knowledge by scientists, priests, publishers and librarians especially after the printing technology was introduced in 16th C. A special attention was paid to the most versatile and systematic documentation system designed and carried out in 19th C by two visionaries, Paul Otlet and Henry la Fontaine who were creators of the concept ‘documentation’. Evidence for this effort still exists in a card based archive in Belgium and its vision and design is now identified by computer scientists as the base structure of the World Wide Web and the base architecture of modern computer networks and search engines. The article provides a brief review of the structure and history of the bibliographic repertory of 18 million index cards. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 2, January 2013, Page 136-162 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i2.6650

Review of Web Presence of University Libraries of Sri Lanka

The paper discusses the findings of a study that analyze the content and design of university library websites of Sri Lanka and highlights the points that need to be addressed in order to enhance the quality of websites. Besides, this paper presents a simplified version of an evaluative instrument that was developed by the author. Websites of university libraries of Sri Lanka were assessed in terms of both quantitative and qualitative web presence. A 17-itemed evaluative instrument was used to measure the qualitative web presence. The rating of the websites was carried out during the first week of April 2013. Findings revealed that the quantitative web presence of Sri Lankan university libraries is at a quite commendable level. All 3 parameters - availability of websites, size of sites, location of the link to the library site in the parent institution’s website - that measured the quantitative web presence were found to be in high level. Besides, out of the two parameters - content richness and design accuracy – that measured qualitative web presence, the content richness level of websites was found to be at a commendable status. However, majority of websites reported low scores when measured in terms of design accuracy. The evaluative instrument presented in this paper would be useful for library professionals in evaluating the current status of the library websites for institutional or research purposes. The evaluative instrument presented in this paper is an original tool and the results generated based on the tool have added a new set of empirical data to the body of literature. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 1, January 2013, Page 34-57 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i1.6643

Libraries in Sri Lanka in the Ancient Anuradhapura Period: a Historical Account (250 B.C. – 1017 A.D.)

The origin of libraries in Sri Lanka is related to the introduction of Buddhism to the Island. Buddhism was formally introduced to Sri Lanka by Venerable Mahinda, in the third century B.C. during the reign of King Devanampiyatissa. The advent of Arahant Mahinda and Arahant Sangamimtha to the country during the ancient Anurādhapura era was considered as major landmark in history. The art of literary tradition and bibliographic activities properly began in the ancient Sri Lankan history with these two important events. Education also was enriched by the influence of Buddhism during the Anurādhapura period. There were three main learning centers for monks in ancient Sri Lanka namely the Mahavihara, the Abhayagiri and the Jetavana. It was quite possible that these religious and educational centers possess repositories of books or may be simply known as libraries. Recorded evidence available in the Mahawamsa and Culawamsa showed that there had been large numbers of monastic libraries in ancient Sri Lanka but it is difficult to find recorded evidence of these early types of libraries, except for the written facts available in early literature regarding their existence. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 1, January 2013, Page 66-75 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i1.6645

Preservation and Documentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage: the Strategic Role of the Library and Information Science Professionals in Sri Lanka

The purpose of this research is to shed light on an area of librarianship which is not often talked about in Sri Lankan context i.e. safeguarding and documentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). The objective of this research is to emphasize on the need of a contribution of library profession in the process of safeguarding and documentation of ICH and to identify the strategic role of the Library and Information Science (LIS) Professionals in this regard. Based on descriptive analysis of literatures and current responsibilities of LIS professionals in Sri Lanka, this study outlines the need of national awareness on this topic through the identified new roles of LIS professionals. This study further emphasizes on the contribution of the national scheme for safeguarding and documentation of ICH in Sri Lanka based on international recommendations with the continuous support of our Library Professionals and National Library of Sri Lanka. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 1, January 2013, Page 58-65 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i1.6644

Installation and Customization Experience of Metadata Harvester System: Case from University of Ruhuna

University of Ruhuna is a thriving modern Sri Lankan university with strengths in both research and teaching. Library system of University of Ruhuna provides an enormous contribution to the university in order to provide access to scholarly information through journals (online and printed), books, e-repositories and other means. Library network of the university spend substantial amount of money for subscribing to printed and electronic journals annually. Access to paid scholarly literature is limited depending on the subscription type to the database or journal. There is a renewed trend of searching for open-access (OA) knowledge which break the price boundaries and provide better access to the current knowledge among academic community. Open access repositories provide searching and downloading of scholarly information materials for free of charge. Spending extra time on sorting and filtering of OA-materials by information seekers out of the search results obtained has been a major demerit of using OA knowledge. Finding and searching on different open access repositories separately is also been a difficult and time consuming task. A unified interface for searching on different OA repositories worldwide can facilitates readers by reducing the searching time and effort of different scholarly materials and OA repositories in the world. Harvester System of University of Ruhuna (HaSURu) deployed in order to fulfil the gap of a unified interface that can connect number of OA archives together and search over the internet for OA information. HaSURu keeps OA information of OAI-registered open-access archives worldwide. OAI is an organization that promotes the better dissemination of knowledge among researchers. There are 1944 OA repositories worldwide has registered under OAI as data providers. Present study aimed at acquiring all the OA repository information from OAI and provide access through a unified interface using OAI-PMH driven metadata harvester. This paper discusses the process of installing and customizing PKP OHS Harvester2 as OA information finder carried out at University of Ruhuna. All the Information seekers of Sri Lanka will find this new service as a better source of access to OA repositories worldwide for their future research work. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 1, January 2013, Page 12- 33 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i1.6642

Effect of Problem Based Learning (PBL) on Library Usage: a Study at Faculty of Health-Care Sciences, Eastern University of Sri Lanka

Researches show that the use of library in academic institutions is decreasing due to various reasons. One of the reasons for such decrease is that the less motivation towards further reading by traditional lecture based teaching and learning. This type of teaching-learning methods entirely drives away the self-motivated learning. Whenever the students are encouraged for the self-directed learning, the usage of library will increase and in turn, it paves the way for students to gain broader knowledge on a particular subject. In this context, Problem Based Learning (PBL) is such an approach, which encourages the self-motivated learning. PBL is a student driven process, through which the students set the pace thus the role of the teacher becomes one of the guide, facilitator and resource person. Most of the medical schools all over the world nowadays shifted their teaching learning program to PBL. The Faculty of Health-Care Sciences (FHCS) of Eastern University of Sri Lanka (EUSL) has also adopted the PBL approach. The present study investigated how the PBL have an impact on the use of library of Faculty of Health-Care Sciences. The library usage of students was recorded during PBL sessions and other academic sessions. The data obtained were analysed statistically using chi-squared test and student-t test. The results reveal that there is an association (p<0.05) between PBL session and increase in library usage and library usage significantly differs (p <0.05) between PBL session and other academic session. Further, results indicate that library usage has been increased significantly during the PBL session than other academic session. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 1, January 2013, Page 1-11 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i1.6641

Enhancing Accuracy of a Search Output: a Conceptual Model for Information Retrieval

Providing relevant information through the determination of priorities for a user request is important as it saves both labour and time of the inquirer as well as the information provider. Therefore, the development of information retrieval models to compute these priorities as numerical representations of their relevancies is becoming a major task of the modern information retrieval arena. This paper introduces a new model for information retrieval. This model appears as a vector multiplication of the distances among the terms in the query with the distances among the same terms in the document. Therefore, it determines the relevancies among the query and the documents by matching the distances between each two terms in the query with the distances between the same terms in each document of the corpus. Also this paper uses an example to show that the new model is able to distinctly identify two or more documents according to the given query which cannot be done by using the vector space model when the documents include same term frequencies and same number of total terms. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 2, January 2013, Page 119-135 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i2.6649

Introducing Bibliotherapy in Public Libraries of Jaffna district: an Exploratory Study

This study investigates the role of the public library sector of Jaffna district in Northern Sri Lanka towards providing bibliotherapy as a service to the waraffected people seeking help in solving their problems. Using Survey research method, collected data was analyzed to find out the awareness of the concept, acceptance of bibliotherapy as method of treatment, existence and suitability of bibliotherapy in public libraries and the attitude of the librarians to be a bibliotherapist. The study suggests the possibility of implementing bibliotherapy in public libraries of Jaffna district with the support of health authorities. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 2, January 2013, Page 104-118 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i2.6648

IT students’ perceptions on e-learning: a preliminary survey at University of Colombo

There is a trend in universities to utilize e-learning to improve the quality of learning activities of campus based students. The objective of the study was to find out the IT students’ perceptions towards e-learning. The population of the study consisted of five hundred and twenty five students. Stratified random sampling was used to select the sample elements from the study population. A questionnaire was administered to two hundred and twenty six students. A total of hundred and fourty five complete questionnaires were selected for the analysis. More fourth year students are uncertain on the helpfulness of the course management systems in improving exam results. More students who use computer facilities only at the University and students who do not have a computer have negative perception on their ability to learn in an elearning environment, usefulness of online resources for learning and the availability of opportunities to share and discuss subject matters with other students. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 16, Issue 2, July 2012, Page 160-178 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v16i2.5206

Requirements of Net Generation towards university libraries in Sri Lanka

At present academic libraries have a trend to introduce innovative services in par with developing technologies as well as the different aspirations of Net Generation. This study aims to explore the characteristics of Net Generation, their help seeking preferences, information behaviours and their needs and wants towards university library. A survey of freshmen was conducted in 2011 at University of Jaffna, Eastern University and South Eastern University of Sri Lanka. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were carried out. The study found that majority of respondents use internet but they rarely use library web pages and Online Public Access catalogue (OPAC). They have a tendency to move to e-resources and they prefer multimedia information than textual information. They are comfortable in asking help from librarian directly (in- person communication) whilst some of them wish to communicate via e-mail, face book and instant messaging. It recommends that librarians can help students via help-desk, instant messaging, e-mail, chat or ask a librarian services from the library websites. Libraries should initiate action to collect more electronic resources. Information literacy should be included as a course unit. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 16, Issue 2, July 2012, Page 101-116 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v16i2.5202

WHO publications available in the Peradeniya Medical Library: a bibliometric study

The collection of publications by World Health Organization (WHO) in the Medical Library contains documents published since 1950 to date which has been made available to the library free of charge by the WHO. The collection is very much under-used. A bibliometric study on the collection was carried out with the objective of making the readership and the library staff aware of what is available in the collection, which would indirectly improve the usage. The collection of WHO publications which is available in the Medical Library except periodicals was considered for the study. A head count on the total number of publications under study was obtained. The numbers of items in major subject divisions and in the most popular subject area within these divisions were counted separately. Contents of each publication in the collection were carefully read through in order to identify any specific topic or aspect of health on which the coverage was dominant. Items in monograph series were counted separately. Geographical coverage of contents of the publications was examined. A chronological evaluation of the collection was done by counting items published in each decade from 1950 to 2011. Data thus gathered was analyzed to obtain percentages of publications available in each category with respect to the total number. The results revealed that the collection contained information on various health related topics at national, regional and global levels. Collection needs to be improved by acquiring current publications. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 16, Issue 2, July 2012, Page 117-124 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v16i2.5203