Library User Survey: Based on the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Jaffna

Abstract

The study involves ascertaining the users' views of the resources and services available in the main library. The survey was conducted among the students from the Humanities and Social Sciences that are two of the main divisions, apart from aesthetic studies, that make up the Faculty of Arts. The main instrument of the survey was a questionnaire that was given to a sample of students, the data obtained from which was then analysed by appropriate statistical techniques. The study reveals that there is at the core a positive relation between the level of satisfaction among the students of the Social Sciences and Humanities and the usage of the Library, taken together with key facets ranging from resource collection to library environment, attitude of the staff and the services on offer. They have also indicated additional and existing services that would add quality to their library use. The University of Jaffna faces the challenges of a region in a developing country that needs to move forward and put behind it the deleterious effects of 30 years of violence and war. The war, leading to relative isolation of the region and the exodus of academically competent members of the staff, inevitably posed a severe challenge to the upkeep of standards in a university that showed much promise in the early 1980s. The principal challenge facing the Library, in addition to catering to the information needs of staff and students, is to motivate students to read independently, use the facilities of the Library to enhance and satisfy their curiosity for knowledge and give us a more enlightened generation that would enable the intellectual recovery of the region to be self-sustaining.