Search Strategies Adopted By Users of Agricultural Libraries of Northern India

Library Herald Year : 2018, Volume : 56, Issue : 4 First page : ( 467) Last page : ( 480) Print ISSN : 0024-2292. Online ISSN : 0976-2469. Article DOI : 10.5958/0976-2469.2018.00038.6

Search Strategies Adopted By Users of Agricultural Libraries of Northern India For Searching Electronic Information Resources

Dr Bhat Nazir Ahmad Assistant Librarian, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology of Kashmir. E-Mail: nazir69@skuastkashmir.ac.in, Mob: 7889519155

Abstract

The study has been conducted with a purpose to explore which are the most popular search platforms, and search approaches adopted by users of electronic information resources (EIRs). The investigator made a personal survey of seven sampled universities for collecting data about the questions under investigation and questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. The investigator also had a face to face interaction with respondents to substantiate the responses and remove ambiguities thereof. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to make analysis of the data on empirical basis. Chi Squared (χ2) Test was used to derive association between the variables and test the level of significance thereof. It is explored that the ‘search engines’ and ‘university webpage’ are the most popular search platforms among users of the agricultural libraries of northern India. The newly emerged platforms i.e. ‘remote access software’ and ‘federated search engines’ have not yet become popular among users of surveyed libraries. ‘Google’ proves to be the number one search engine and ‘Yahoo’ is seen to be used by 20.00% of users. The ’Title’, and ‘Keyword/Subject Term’ happen to be much popular than other search approaches and a good percentage of respondents approach information through ‘Author’.

Keywords Electronic information resources (EIRs), search platforms, search engines, search approaches, search strategies.