Use of Electronic Resources among Academics at the University of Karachi

Introduction Technology has penetrated all areas of life and the use of information technology (IT) has work procedures and approaches. Libraries use IT for better services and satisfying diverse user needs. Libraries have transformed into digital and virtual libraries where books, journals and magazines have changed into e-books, e-journals, and e-zines. This has increased the global dissemination of information. Electronic resources are easily accessible in the remote areas. Electronic resources solve storage problems and control the flood of information. Print sources are being digitized. There is a great need to study the use of electronic resources and investigate the factors that are a hindrance to their use. University of Karachi and Electronic Resources The Dr Mahmud Hussain Library is the central library of the University of Karachi, which serves students, faculty, and researchers. All departments and research institutes have departmental libraries. Dr Mahmud Hussain Library is responsible for acquisition and technical processing of all departmental libraries. The library has access to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) digital library. All necessary facilities and equipment for accessing electronic resources are available through the HEC digital library. The HEC digital library program was introduced in 2004 to provide access to international scholarly literature in electronic form, including high- quality, peer-reviewed journals, article databases, and ebooks. Access is provided to public and private universities and non-profit research and development organizations in Pakistan. It provides 24,000 electronic journals and 45,000 electronic books (Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, n.d.) Scope of the study This study is limited to the Faculty of Arts, University of Karachi. The university has five faculties. The Faculty of Arts is the largest, consisting of twenty departments in the social sciences and humanities. Objectives 1. To discover available facilities for using electronic resources in the departments being studied 2. To ascertain the abilities of UOK academics to use electronic resources 3. To discover the type of sources which are used most often among UOK academics 4. To explore the purpose for using electronic resources 5. To ascertain the satisfaction level of UOK academics with electronic resources Literature Review A large number of research studies have been conducted on the use of electronic resources. Shuling (2007) analyzed the use of electronic resources in Shaanxi University of Science and Technology. The sample consists of 909 respondents of all types of library users. The study found that nearly 80 percent of respondents knew little about electronic resources. Nearly half the respondents use both printed and electronic resources, followed by print periodicals. Ali (2005) highlights the use of electronic information services (EIS) among the users of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) library in Delhi, India. Data was collected from three hundred IIT library users. Results reveal that 95 percent of users have awareness about EIS provided by the library. Dadzie (2005) investigated the use of electronic resources by students and faculty of Asheshi University, Ghana, to determine the level of use, the type of information accessed and the effectiveness of the library's communication tools for information research and problems faced in using electronic resources. Results indicate that 85 percent of respondents used the Internet to access information, and that respondents mainly accessed information in the library by browsing the shelves. Rehman and Ramzy (2004) investigated the awareness and use of electronic information resources among health academics. Results show that libraries are extensively used for research needs, preparation of lectures, and for obtaining current knowledge. …