Information seeking pattern of plantation research faculty of Agricultural and Horticultural Universities in south India

The purpose is to examine the information seeking pattern of faculty members of Department of Horticultural Science of Agricultural and Horticultural Universities in South India. The major findings of the study is that majority of the respondents under the study were dominated by males (75.11 %) and more than half of the respondents has rural social background 143 (62.45%) and 156 (35.77%) from urban background, which signifies the active participation by the rural population in research and teaching fraternity in horticulture and agricultural field. It also observed that majority of the faculty (72.02%) members are doctoral degree holders. The faculty members have the regular habit of updating themselves to acquire knowledge, by visit to library on daily basis and also on weekly basis, almost all of the faculty members (98.25%o) are using the electronic information resources and services and majority of the faculty members were having access to the electronic information resources at various places including their departments (90.67%o) and as well as from their home (40.89%). It is also observed from the study that the Plantation crops, Botany/clone Evaluation, Plant pathology/ entomology, Biotechnology, Germplasm subjects were the ‘top priority’ subject as indicated by the respondents and they wish to have more electronic resources on these subjects.