Research on Information
Seeking Behaviour: An Attempt
to Bridge What Users Need and
What Libraries Could Offer
Imilia Binti Ibrahim
Sabariah Binti Abd Samad
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
What I have for you today…
• Library and User
• Research on Information
Seeking Behaviour
• Our case: UiTM Sarawak
users
• Conclusion and
Recomendation
2
Library and users… never been in the
same page???
3
Users
• Are normally clueless on
what to expect from the
library
• Always jump into the
easiest route to success
• Would always blame the
library when they could not
find what they want
4
Libraries? (that refers to the managers…
better known as librarians)
• Always try to provide latest and
most popular services
• Thought that the more complex
the services… the better they are
• When one person ask for
something, they thought… well
we should provide this for
everyone
5
How to make these two meet?
• By understanding each other… or
actually the service provider
should understand the users…
6
Why Research on Information Seeking
Behaviour?
• Everyone will have their own way
of using information
• How they seek for information
would also be different from each
other
• The best way to get some clue on
their needs and attitude towards
information is by doing some
research about it
7
Well… where do we start?
• Let see… it is basically a
simple quantitative
research
• To get some idea, there’s a
lot of researches on the
topic out there…
• Find one or two that could
be your example
• And start with your own
8
Our pilot study… UiTM Sarawak
experience
• We prepared custom set of questions for UiTM users
(well we didn’t pluck from the sky, therefore we did
some literature search)
• We distributed questionnaires to users which
includes
– Students (288 Answered)
– Academic Staff (23 Answered)
– Non Academic staff (19 Answered)
• And our research shows some answers to our
questions…
9
Why people need information?
250
233
239
200
169
150
239
100
109
50
0
Research Work
General
Information
Teaching and
Learning
Reading and
knowledge
10
Materials that they need…
Types of Materials
Abstracts
Total No. Of
Respondents
120
Full Text Articles
265
Technical Documents
80
Statistics
48
Graphs and Charts
45
11
Their preferred way to search for
information…
Preferred Way to Search for
Information
Total No. Of Respondents
Ask the Librarian
131
Internet Search Engine
311
Online Database
210
Books
253
Reference Sources
232
Periodicals
207
12
Tools that they use to find information
Information Tools
Total No. Of Respondents
Library Catalogue (OPAC)
179
Search Engine
284
Indexing and Abstracting
Journal / Database
72
References from a Book
190
References from an Article
176
Book Reviews
109
13
When and where…
Where and When
Total No. Of Respondents
In the Office During Office Hour
59
In the Office After Office Hour
12
At Home After Office Hour
92
In the Library During
Office Hour
96
In the Library After Office Hour
60
Others
3
No Answer
8
14
Why people go to the library…
Reason
Total No. Of Respondents
Borrow Books
224
Read Books / Magazines/
Newspaper
Use the Internet
172
Use the Discussion Rooms
69
Watch TV
64
135
15
Their perceptions towards library
services…
Information Skills Class
Satisfactory
Good
130
Circulation
177
Reference
Internet
Discussion Rooms / Studio
133
119
130
Printing
OPAC
118
128
Online Databases
Inter-Library Loan
133
113
Fax
115
16
Problems faced when searching for
information…
Materials Not Available
124
188
188
Insufficient Time
No Help for the Staff
63
Information Overload
Information Scattered
53
73
120
30
Lack of Information Skills
Obsolete Information
17
And for the
conclusion….
Well that’s it from me….
ThAnK yOu VeRy MuCh FoR
yOuR aTtEnTiOn