A study on library usage and ICT skills among the internees of a rural medical college in Tamilnadu

Medical college libraries house various resources such as textbooks, reference books, medical journals, online journals, databases, etc., and also provide various services including reprographic, audio-visual and computer based services to their staff and students. Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is on the rise in medical college libraries. Tele-medicine, teleconferencing, e-databases, e-books, e-journals, etc., are being increasingly made available on the net. Present study examines the use of the traditional and digital resources by the undergraduate medical internees of a medical college – Rural Medical College in Tamilnadu. It also aims to study the level of computer literacy among the internees. This survey predominantly uses questionnaire for data collection. The study results reveal that reference books are the most often used reference sources in the library in comparison with other sources such as textbooks, journals, back volumes. Another important finding is that the ICT knowledge among the respondents is not at optimum level.