1Assistant Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, Karnatak University, Dharwad, Karnataka
2Professor and Chairman, Department of Library and Information Science, Karnatak University, Dharwad, Karnataka
3Sr. Librarian, Hindalco Industries Ltd, Unit: Birla Copper, Dahej-Bharuch, Gujarat
4Librarian, Kalpataru Institute of Technology, Tiptur-Tumkur, Karnataka
This paper sets out to investigate the use of e-resources by P.G. students of different universities of Karnataka state (India). The purpose of the study is to determine the knowledge and use of e-resources; users’ skills in handling e-resources; to reveal the factors which influence the effective use of e-resources; problems faced by the respondents and to provide effective solutions to the problems encountered. The survey was conducted through a structured questionnaire distributed among 256 P.G. students of Science & Technology discipline, out of which 235 dully filled in questionnaires were received back giving an overall response rate of 91.79 per cent. The study found that the information content in e-resources is better than that of print versions; most of the users access e-resources to search bibliographical information. Lack of availability of personal computers and internet bandwidth are the two main problems faced by users. The study recommends to form a consortium at the state level to add substantial e-resources to the existing collections in the university libraries.
e-resources, P.G. students, Science & Technology, University libraries, Karnataka state, UGC-In
