Library Information-Seeking Behaviour among Undergraduate Students of Agricultural Extension and Education in Iran

Abstract

This paper investigates the library information-seeking behaviour among undergraduate students of agricultural extension and education of Iran. By using stratified proportional random sampling (by Morgan table), 230 persons were selected from four famous universities (Tehran, Shiraz, Mollasani and Kermanshah) of Iran through questionnaires for this study. Reliability was measured by Cronbach-Alpha (á = 0.84), which showed that the reliability of the questionnaires was acceptable. Scale-free technique, Principal Components
Analysis method, Eta test, and Correlation and Regression tools were used for data analysis. The findings revealed that awareness of library scientific resources and availability of library resources items were the most important and influenced factors in students’ library information-seeking behaviour. Students with higher academic level are generally expected to have higher skills through information-seeking behaviour. On the contrary, this study indicates that the students were not influenced by this. Gaps in the library facilities in different universities (especially total number of related books to field and the number of computers) have direct influence on students’ library information-seeking  behaviour. Besides, interactions (searching by asking other students and faculty) were the other means students’ used for seeking information.

http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.29.256