A SURVEY OF USER ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE REFERENCE RESOURCES AND SERVICES OF FOUR ACADEMIC LIBRARIES OF KATHMANDU VALLEY

Abstract

The thesis is entitled "A survey of user attitude towards the reference resources and services of four academic libraries of Kathmandu Valley" are carried out. The main objectives of this study is to examine and analyze the present existing situation, condition, resources and services of library and their management for effective organization. Reference service is one of the library's primary services behind acquisitions, classification, cataloguing and physical planning. This service provides personalized assistance to library users in accessing and using suitable information resources to meet their needs. Random sampling method was adopted in order to select sample size after determining the total population. The required data and information have been obtained from the primary source and secondary source with the help of semi-structured questionnaire. For this, four academic campus libraries were selected (PK, TC, NCC, PY) in the Kathmandu valley. The analysis of this study includes 117 respondents which is 84.8% of questionnaire distributed. The questionnaires were distributed to 30% of the total population. The total population in this study was 464 students. Among 117 respondents, 24 respondents belonged to Padma Kanya Campus studying in Master Level first year in Humanities faculty and 26 respondents belonged to Tri-Chandra Campus studying in Master Level first year in Humanities faculty. Similarly, 29 respondents belonged to Nepal Commerce Campus studying in Master Level first year in Management faculty and 38 respondents belonged to Public Youth Campus studying in Master Level first year in Management faculty. According to the findings of the research, most of the respondents view that the collections of documents in the library are inadequate. Most of the researcher does not get documents in time due to insufficient number v DEMO : Purchase from www.A-PDF.com to remove the watermark 106 of books, lack of new edition books, staff biasness and delayed return of issued books by library members. Thirty nine percent of the students visit library daily. Those who mostly visit library for borrowing the textbook. Sixty three percent of the students are satisfied with the opening hour of library but only 36% are not satisfied with the existing time period. Sixty seven percent respondents mentioned that they are familiar with the reference materials. Sixty two percent students are not satisfied with the reference materials which are insufficient in total collection of the library materials. More than 50% students have knowledge about catalogue system and 86% have responded for the necessity of the catalogue system. It highlights for the development of library, efficient library services, professional librarian, sufficient budget, standard-classification scheme and standard-cataloguing system. Modern computerizing and online services are the main problems for the users without which the users cannot get effective information. Therefore, the libraries should address all such shortcomings to improve their conditions and need to be carried out positive attitude of the library users in the existing campus library. Pandit, Upasana