Users’ information needs and information seeking behavior at the WVSU-Pototan campus library

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine library users’ information needs and information-seeking behavior at the WVSU-Pototan Campus Library during the second semester, AY 2014-2015.

The respondents of the study comprised of 56faculty members and 346 students of West Visayas State University- Pototan Campus who are selected using the stratified random sampling. This is a descriptive-correlational study that used the one shot-survey design. A researcher-made instrument used to collect data for this validated and tested for reliability.

The study showed that all faculty members and most of the students surveyed had utilized the library, clear indication that they value it as the main source of their information needs. Reserve books and general reference materials were the most utilized resources by both the faculty and students. Faculty members utilized library resources for the purpose of their lecture/teaching purposes while, students utilized the library resources for the purpose of doing their assignments.

Faculty and students usually sought the assistance of librarian and students assistants in searching for the information they needed. This simply shows how important the librarian is in catering to the needs of library users even with the advent of technology that provides easy access of information.

Both faculty and students preferred to borrow books in order to retrieve the information needed. This affirms that the library users still prefer to use printed resources over electronic resources.

College affiliation, years of teaching experience and highest educational attainment have something to do with the information needs in terms of resources needed of faculty members. Students’ information needs in terms of resources needed was dependent on their sex, year level and course. Students' seemed to have different resources needed according to their personal characteristics.

The faculty members' information seeking behavior in terms of searching was not dependent on their college affiliation, years of teaching experience, and highest educational attainment. Similarly, information seeking behavior of faculty members in terms of retrieving was not dependent on their personal characteristics.

Student's information seeking behavior in terms of searching was not dependent on their personal characteristic, sex and year level of students did not influence their information seeking behavior in terms of retrieving.

Faculty members' information seeking behavior in terms of searching was not dependent on their information needs. Further, faculty members’ information needs did not affect their information seeking behavior in terms of retrieving.

Students’ information did not influence their information seeking behavior in terms of searching. Moreover, information seeking behavior of students was not dependent on their information needs. This implies that the higher the information needs of students the more retrieving methods they will use.