A study of conditions and problems of using library information resources for conducting research and academic work encountered by instructors and personnel of King Mongkut's university of technology north Bangkok
A study of conditions and problems of using library information resources for conducting research and academic work encountered by instructors and personnel of King Mongkut's university of technology north Bangkok.
Abstract:
This study is of a survey type whose objective was to study conditions and problems of using library information resources for conducting research and academic works encountered by personnel of King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok. It was found that most respondents preferred to study in the library during weekday from 8.00 a.m. to 4 p.m. about 2-3 times a semester. Most borrowed from the library 1-5 items a
semester. Surfing the library homepage was preferable. The types of information resources most used was printed matters followed by electronics media and non-printed media. Printed matters most used were general books and textbooks while the non-printed materials most used were VCD. Electronic media most used were foreign data bases. The channel for using electronic media was through personal computers in their offices. Regarding the 21 services offered by the library, the study revealed thdt 58.97 % of the respondents never used anyone of them. This was so because they did not know that those services were available in the library. As for their attitude towards the library service, they articulated that it was good as a
whole. With respect to the problems in using library resources, it was found as a whole moderately significant. The most problematic one was that the library did not have printed matters they needed (which were not of the journal type). The number of the available ones was too small. Some books appeared only as a name in the card catalog but the real one could not be found on the shelf. Regarding the problems of the journals, the study indicated that the library did not
provide the journals that met their need; the number of journals was small; the needed journal
could not be found on the shelf; and to find the back-dated journals was difficult.
In relation to the problems with non-printed materials, it was found that there were
a small number of them. Their content was not up to date. The content did not meet their
need. And respondents could not pick them up by themselves.
With regard to electronic media, it was found that the access was too slow and
sometimes could not access it. Wanted information was not available. The databases available
did not provide full text. Databases the library had did not cover needed information.
I Suggestions provided by the respondents included discarding old-fashioned
textbooks, providing more online databases, and improving network speed