Information Seeking Behaviour of Pharmacy Faculty: Implications for Enhancing the Quality of Pharmacy Libraries in Tamil Nadu (India)

Abstract

Information seeking behaviour is an activity of an individual in the process of identifying information that suits his/her knowledge pursuit. It is observed from the review of literature that there is no single study on the information seeking behaviour of faculties of pharmacy either at state level or national levels in India. Therefore this research has been conducted to bridge the gap on information seeking behaviour of pharmacy faculty in Tamil Nadu in view of the recent developments in information seeking behaviour, with objectives such as: to identify the information needs and seeking behaviour of faculty of the pharmacy educational institutions in Tamil Nadu (India); to examine the motivating factors for information seeking behaviour of the pharmacy faculty; to examine faculty opinions about the comprehensiveness or otherwise of respective institutions' library collections; and to analyse the extent of use and dependence on various sources of information for teaching and research. A total of 729 questionnaires have been distributed among 41 pharmacy educational institutions in Tamil Nadu, out of which 601 have responded, and the response rate is 82.44%. Based on the findings of the study certain implications have been derived as measures to enhance the quality of the pharmacy libraries in Tamil Nadu.