The use of electronic information resources among the users of Penang Public Library Corporation

Abstract

Public libraries place importance on information technology for the delivery of quality services. One aspect of quality services is knowing the usage in the electronic information resources (EIRs) among the users. This study was carried out to investigate the use of the EIRs at the Penang Public Library Corporation (PPLC). The findings revealed that EIRs services provided by PPLC are being regularly used by the users. It was noted that the younger group relied more on the EIRs. The most preferred EIRs were Internet (51.9%) and OPAC (43.2%). The preference of Internet was higher among school students with 25% users and college students with 17.2% users, whereas preference of OPAC was higher among the professional group with 30% users. It was determined also that most of the users who used Internet were for information searching. For OPAC, they seemed more likely to use title search in searching library materials and they learned to use the OPAC by themselves. The usage of other EIRs were less popular with Electronic Journals (19.1%), Online databases (16.0%) and CD-ROMs (7.4%). It is recommended that PPLC must strive aggressively to promote the less popular EIRs that are provided but seldom used by the library users. PPLC also needs to improve its training programme in order to help users to enhance the use of EIRs.