Information Seeking Behavior and Awareness about the Quality of Research in this Era of ‘E’: A Survey

The study is about the changes in the information seeking behavior of the users of technical, medical and university libraries of North India. A survey has been conducted through a telephonic questionnaire/interview to know the changes in the information-seeking behavior and problems being faced by the users while retrieving information through E-Resources and how these problems can be solved? Out of total 132 respondents, 100 are students, professionals and research scholars, who are the direct users of medical and scientific literature in various forms and 32 are library professionals. In addition to this, an effort has been made to know the level of awareness about the quality check of this research. Finding of the study shows the inclination towards the e-resource by all groups of users. Further the level of awareness about the quality check is very disappointing. The result of the survey showed that about fifty percent of users are not aware of the provision of quality check of the research, many are unaware of the terms like Citations, h-Index and Impact Factors, which is now possible through bibliographical databases like SCOPUS and Web of knowledge.