Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of foreign periodicals provided by the Library of Faculty of Nursing, Chulalongkorn University regarding the objectives, frequencies, fileds and ages of the periodicals, sufficiencies, problems, and suggestions to improve the Librarys periodical service. The population of the research consisted of 13 faculty members and 100 graduate students. The tools used were : 1)The Periodical Loan Form for photocopy data, and 2)The questionaire developed by the researcher. Data were analysed by using percentage, mean,and standard deviation. The major findings were as follows: The most frequently used periodical in the field of nursing was Nurse Educator whereas that in the filed of nursing management was Hospital and Health Services Administration. The objective of faculty members for using the periodicals was teaching whereas that of the students was conducting theses. Age of the periodicals used ranged from 0 to 3 years. The highest used source of Chulalongkorn University was the Library of Faculty of Nursing. Services needed at the highest level by both faculty members and students were : a privilege to bring periodicals to photocopy outside the library, user-trainings on serching and using electronic periodicals available in Internet, online as well as CD - ROM databases, reference services and assistance in using reference computer-based tools and databases.The problem encountered at the highest level was that there were not enough periodicals in the fields available in the library. The problems at a moderate level were that periodicals could not be accessed because they were in the process of binding; articles were missing from issues; and periodicals were mis-shelved causing difficulty and much time to find them.