Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behaviour of Post-Graduate and Doctoral Students

Information seeking behaviour is an essential component in the designing and developing of need based information centres for meeting the information requirements of users. The undertaken study describes the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of post-graduate students and research scholars of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The main objective of this research study is to analyse the information seeking pattern of students in the social sciences stream. The survey was conducted to look more closely at specific areas of the study for an in-depth examination of trends and patterns in seeking information. It is found that almost all students used to get information through Internet but they prefer print material over digital resources for study purpose. They face a lots of difficulties and obstacles to access those electronic and print resources. Therefore, orientation programs and users' education programs are imperative to give them information on library services and activities. This study can be helpful for students as well as for teachers, librarians and mentors who provide information to the students and researchers.