Abstract:
The purposes of this research are to investigate students success and failure in locating the desired books, the causes of such failure, as well as the library book service organized by the Central Library, Khon Kaen University. The set-up hypothesis in this study are as follows : 1. The success and failure in locating the desired books depend on the library operations 2. The users can find their desired books if they knew about the process of using library 3. The success and failure in locating the desired books depend on the users themselves (such as : rightly know how to use the library and the searching tools) The study was undertaken by distributing the questionnaires to the students who were looking for the books in both Thai and English reading rooms during the peak use-period in July and August of the first semester of the 1983 academic year. The data gathering procedure through the questionnaires was usually carried out at the time random of an hour in the morning and in the afternoon period during the official working days. The total amount of the completed questionnaires which are further used for the analysis is from 398 undergraduate students. The summarized findings are as follows : Most of the users, in other words, the respondents, are the first, the fourth, the second, and the third year students respectively. Most of them (66.6 percent) are studying in Science and Technology rather than being in the Humanities and Social Sciences areas. The number of books, of which all of them needed, range mostly from 1-3. Most of the first year students prefer to use Thai rather than English books. Of the total users, 90.2 percent are succeeded in locating the books they want. This rate of success is regarded from the total number of users. When the number of books wanted and the number of books located (1108 books/ 792 books) are taken into account, the success rate is low down to 71.5 percent. When the success rate is calculated per a user, the average success rate is 72.7 percent which is not much higher than the previous one. The average success rate of the books available and the average success rate of a user are obviously much lower than the success rate of the total users. This might be due to the fact that some users may be able to locate every book they need, while the others may partially be able to locate only some desired books. The success rate of the second and the fourth year students in locating books are 78.1 percent and 74.3 percent respectively, while the success rate of the first and the third year students are lower, of which only 67.8 percent and 66.7 percent are apparent respectively. Tracing the environment when the books are found by the users, 40.7 percent of the books available are located in their proper place. This shows that less than half of the books found are in their right place. Other places when the books are found are on the shelves but misplaced, on reserved, on the table and in the duplicate servicing areas. As for the purposes of the book-use, most of the first, the second, and the third year students attempt to find the books primarily for the supplement of their learning activity. Meanwhile, the fourth year students have the purposes of doing the report or project. For the books found, most of the users intend to borrow them for the external use. The main cause of book unavailability, or 65 percent, is due from the library operation, while 35 percent is caused by the users themselves. The most predominant reason for the book unavailability is that 19 percent of them are on circulation. Next, the books are not owned by the library, are misshelved, on the tables, or in other words, not ready for use on the shelves, on book trucks, or at the binding section. The causes of failure raised by the users are due to their incorrect or having incomplete bibliography (26 percent). Next are the wrong or incomplete call number and lack of their understanding of the book arrangement on the shelves. However, the users tend to think that their failure is caused by books are too packed on the shelves and the call number signs on the shelf are of difference from the books on that shelf. In solving the problems when the desired books are not available, the users prefer to find the substitute. Unfortunately, less than half of the desired books can be substituted. Generally, the users locate their books by using the card catalogs, of which the title card is preferable. The reason why some users especially most of the first year students, do not prefer to use the card catalog is of the shortage of know-how. Therefore, that is the reason why the first year students success rate in locating books is lower than 50 percent. The users who know how to use the card catalog and how to locate the books can be put into three catagories. The first one are those who have taken the course in using the library. The second one are the ones who read from the library handbooks and inquire information from the libraries. The last one are those who get information from their friends and walk around to look for the books they want on the shelves or on the tables. Most of the users are found falling in the first catagory, respectively followed by the third and the second ones. Taking each group characteristics into consideration, it is found that the success rate of finding the books wanted of the first group appear to be higher than the rest. When the users encounter the problems in finding books and using the library, 72.6 percent of them do not prefer to ask for help from the librarians, except the first year students, whom are satisfied with most of the assistance, besides that of locating books on the shelf, of which only 30.6 percent are successful. The users unlikely ask for assistance from the librarians. The most important reason is expressed that they already know how to use the library. Secondly, they feel unhappy to disturb the busy-looked librarians. The circulation rules are found satistied by most of the users. The findings from this study can serve as the guidelines for the library administrators in planning the library service policy, as well as improving the library practice in order that the library operation can be effectively performed to meet the users need, in terms of book acquisition, book development, library facilities and equipment provision, along with book service operation, for examples: circulation service proper and accurate shelf arrangement. For the library users, the fundamental course in Library and Information Searching Method should be offered for their own benefit in doing the search for report or project in their further studies.