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Analyzing User Satisfaction of Academic Library Services Using CRISP-DM Process
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Madusanka, W.V.D; Nawarathne, I. M; Kapila Tharanga Rathnayaka, R. M
This research was based on quantitative study and its aims were to evaluate the users’ satisfaction of the available services in Sabaragamuwa university library. We used standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) process which is an industry-proven way to build predictive analytics models across the enterprise. The process contains the six phases as follows: business understanding, data understanding, and preparation of data, modeling, evaluation and deployment. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data in the data understanding phase. The 5 point Likert Scale questionnaire was distributed among stratified randomly selected 360 undergraduates who represented 10% of the total university population from the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. The descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and multinomial logistic regression were applied to analyze the obtained data in modeling phase. According to the results of descriptive statistics, selected variables have a satisfaction level and mean of their ranking values around 3 and 4. Furthermore, results suggested that selected variables are distributed slightly normally. Pearson Correlation results revealed that library collection (0.662) and library services (0.658) are highly correlated with physical facilities under the 0.05 level of significance. Furthermore, library services highly correlated with library collection (0.651) and library website services (0.681).
Automatic Mail configuration in Koha: Circulation Process
(Webinar on Digital Library Software, Villanova University's Falvey Memorial Library, USA, 2021-05-27) Jayakananthan, M
Awareness and Usage of Social Media Applications on Information Sources among Undergraduate Engineering Students in Tirunelveli District
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Raja, T
This study is regarding the awareness and usage of social media applications on information sources among the selected undergraduate engineering college students in Tirunelveli district. The investigator has randomly selected 150 final year undergraduate engineering students from the engineering colleges. 150 duly filled-in responses were analysed. The findings of the study revealed that, 72.7% (109) of the final year undergraduate engineering students were found at moderate level in awareness and usage of social media applications on information sources, followed by 74.3 % (55) of the female final year undergraduate engineering students, 74.1 % (20) of the Muslim final year undergraduate engineering students, and 82.4 % (14) of the hostel final year undergraduate engineering students were found at the moderate level among the awareness and usage of social media applications on information sources at a moderate level. There is no significant difference between (i) male and female (ii) rural and urban (iii) day scholar and hosteller iv) Hindu, Muslim, and Christian v) Computer Science Engineering/ Information Technology subject final year undergraduate engineering students and other subjects final year undergraduate engineering students among awareness and usage of social media applications on information sources.
Challenges in Adapting Social Media to Market University Libraries in Sri Lanka
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Wathsala Athukorala1
This paper examines the Challenges in adapting social media to market university libraries in Sri Lanka. A survey method was used to collect data and sample is selected among library academics who are working in the university libraries in Sri Lanka. The Questionnaires were distributed among 123 and the number of library academics who completed and returned surveys in this study was 97.8%. Research found that the challenges such as slow speed of internet, lack of social media policies, privacy issues and confidentiality of information are main challenges in using social media platforms in Sri Lankan university libraries. Further, lack of training opportunities, the willingness of the library staff to use conventional methods and lack of resources are the challenges which would be faced in introducing social media into the library system. It was found that the library professionals have not taken those challenges as real challenges and they consider them as opportunities. The research recommended to the officials in the higher education and grants commission sector, to distribute the funds evenly among all the state universities in Sri Lanka to overcome the lack of resources and facilities in some universities. Further new training programs are recommended by the study to enhance the workers abilities and skills on new technologies. These programs should be arranged among all the staff members and the opportunities to participate for the international programs related to social media for marketing libraries should be given to the academics in the library sector.
Design and Development of E-Content for Distance Learning Students: A Special Reference to Library and Information Science Courses in Baharathidasan University
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Balasubramani, R; Murugan, C
The main aim of this study was to design e-learning course materials for distance education learners in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) of Bharathidasan University, India. The design phase of the content preparation, the steps to be followed, validation of the content by a set of jury members and finally integrating and hosting of the content were discussed. The study also emphasizes the need for e-learning and provides directions for further research.
Documentation of Cultural Heritage in Ancient and Modern Libraries in India
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Prasantha Kumari, M
Documentation is a set of documents provided on paper, or online, or on digital or analog media, such as audio tape or CDs. Documentation is distributed via websites, software products, and other on-line applications. Cultural Heritage is an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values. Libraries are the cultural institutions of a country and have long been related with the physical aspects of their collections. The magnificent past of Indian culture lies in the ancient manuscripts and rare books in Ancient Indian libraries which were open to all irrespective of caste, creed or religion. Historically libraries were part of Indus-valley civilization. Those libraries are called as “Pustakalayas”. According to the Archaeological research department, evidence of ancient Indian libraries are available from 2500-1500BC. Learning and teaching was traditional works done in India since ancient times. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two great epics which prove that point. As rightly pointed out by Dr.Sarvepally Radhakrisnan- “In the olden days teachers of India were themselves librarians and they were held in higher esteem”. So, they are also known as “mobile libraries’ and “memory libraries”. There are many ancient libraries in India which tell how Indian’s teaching and learning skills use to be there and how their knowledge was rooted into their minds. There exist three kinds of libraries in India, Takshila, Nalanda Kasi, etc- Universities and centers of learning, King’s palaces and temples in India. The author is making an effort to refer to some of the renowned libraries in India which have manuscripts on different subjects and rare cultural books and how these were protecting and preserving the cultural heritage of India in electronic environment.
Impact of Emerging Trends and Technologies on Academic Librarianship
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Anuradha, P
Libraries are so valuable that they attract voracious new competition with every technological advance. The Emerging trends and technologies in the late 1990s have completely changed ways of accessing, collecting, organizing and searching multi format information in library setting. In this modern information society the academic library has been an indispensable academic department in the promotion of excellence in teaching and learning in the networked academic learning environment. The Internet has become the primary platform for setting up various library and information sources and services. The advancement of emerging technologies provides libraries with innovative ways of initializing creative services in cyberspace. Technology provides the chance for librarians to innovate, boost quality, measure success, and align services with the priorities of their organizations. With technology, librarians can reintroduce themselves as visible, valuable, and essential partners in achieving common goals. This is especially important in the context of today's tight funding climate and the never-ending struggle to advocate for and secure necessary funding and support for libraries. The results of ICT and the digital revolution call for developing new competencies and skills as well as a new set of proficiencies. New IT applications reduce the need for traditional manual processing in libraries, digital and electronic resources change library operations, processes, and workflows, including skills and competencies required for librarians and support staff. All these changes cause library organization and management changing. Although not by any means a new issue, the emerging trends and technologies were in all its levels will continue to have an impact on the development of the academic library. Academic libraries will need to examine their own status with these emerging technologies. These technologies and trends impact on individual or institutional level will continue to shape the development of the academic library. New technology has provided great opportunities for delivery of services within consortia. More and more libraries must unite, which of course requires a change in the attitudes, practices and policies to get the maximum benefit. Libraries can build on existing strong consortia and partnership networks. Overall, emerging trends for academic libraries reflect the growing importance for collaboration.
Impact of Flip Teaching on High School Students’ Performance in Physics
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) William Dharma Raja, B; Ligi, B
In response to new instructional challenges in education, flip teaching method become a widespread practice in schools, colleges and universities. In traditional approaches of teaching physics in high school students, mostly the teacher plays the role of providing information while the students act as passive listeners. Students need to be more actively engaged with the course material to maximize their understanding. Therefore, teachers who choose to utilize active learning methods in the classroom must find ways to ensure that all required course contents are delivered. Technology plays an important role in education for active learning and delivering the contents in an effective manner. This paper describes the impact of flip teaching on high school students’ performance in physics - remembering, understanding and analyzing. The objective of this study was to find out the effectiveness of flip teaching on performance of high school students in Physics. This is an experimental study, employed with the sample of 80 students of Grade IX, 40 students each were allocated for control group and experimental group. Pre-test scores of both the groups compared through t test, the obtained t values revealed that the two groups were equivalent at the entry point. After the intervention, post-test of both groups were analyzed using t test which revealed that the experimental group performed better than the control group in physics with regard to learning objectives remembering, understanding and analyzing. Mean scores of control and experimental group also shows that there is a positive impact of flip teaching on student’s performance in physics. Educational implications in the light of findings were also discussed in this paper.
Implementation of Institutional Repository using DSPACE: A Case Study at University of Peradeniya
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Maheswaran, R
This article describes the Implementation of Institutional Repository using Dspace Software at the University of Peradeniya. This IR is aimed to give access to research scholarly articles to the Institution’s researcher and to make the visibility of the University of Peradeniya researcher. It also gives access to University database and more importantly some of the logical approach is made in different collections and communities. This article also explains the hard and software requirements provided along with information about the open source software. This article provides evidence on how the University of Peradeniya IR was built from scratch and how various different types of collection with many forms and file formats can be uploaded using Dspace software. Huge amounts of problems were faced during the installation and customization of metadata forms for different collections using Dublin core metadata fields. Dspace permits workflow, customization and community/collection based content and submission by different user communities. This paper helps in planning to build an IR and also helps the beginners in getting an idea of how different file formats can be used for different collections in order to maintain uniformity.
Information Literacy Promotion for Undergraduate Students of Rajabhat Universities: Current Situations
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Praima Hiangrat; Chutima Sacchanand; Songphan Choempayong
This research study is aimed at exploring the current situations of information literacy promotion for undergraduate students of Rajabhat Universities. Content analysis technique, annual reports, self-assessment reports and 38 websites of the universities and libraries were collected as the main data sources. For semi-structured interviews, the key informants, selected by the purposive sampling method included 10 library directors/librarians who were responsible for information literacy promotion. The instruments used for collecting data were a content analysis form and an interview form. Qualitative data was analyzed and synthesized using thematic analysis approach whereas quantitative data analysis covers the frequency and the percentage. As a result, for all Rajabhat Universities, the term ‘information literacy’ was not explicitly incorporated in the university policies, philosophies, visions, missions, and administrative plans. Nonetheless, some relevant concepts were found in the documents on desired characteristics for the graduates. All Rajabhat University libraries, however, organized surrounding environments that enhanced learning atmosphere and were well equipped with infrastructure on information technology. There were also internal and external links of the internet. In most university libraries, the service section was in charge of information literacy promotion, particularly as user education activities (97.37%) as well as Q&A and information retrieval support services (81.58%). All Rajabhat University libraries did not allocate budgets to promote information literacy specifically; the activities organized by all University libraries did not cover all Standards specified by the Association of College and Research Libraries, ACRL. Such activities included library orientations/library tours, providing library manuals, brochures and printed media (100%), and training sessions (94.74%). Mostly, the contents regarding information literacy focused on Standard 2: Access the needed information effectively and efficiently; namely, via information retrieval and on-line databases services (94.74%). The contents also concentrated on Standard 5: Understand many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally, especially in bibliographies and references (26.31%). In Standard 3: Evaluate information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into one’s knowledge base and value system, such contents were not found in the included documents. A few Rajabhat University libraries produced a video to introduction on how to use the library (28.95%). All Rajabhat Universities had a faculty-librarian relationship through a cooperation requested by the faculty members (81.58%), but it was not officially stated in the policy.
Information Literacy: A Smartcard for Lifelong Learning
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Sasikala, V; William Dharma Raja, B
Educational goal is tuned toward the cognitive aspects of handling information in order to prepare the students in pace with the information explosion. To keep abreast of the information age and the technological developments Information literacy is a felt needed skill for the 21st century learners. It is the skill to access and utilize information effectively. A learner imbibed with the adequate awareness of information availability pertaining to his requirement and the ability to reflect upon the quality and reliability of the information could be termed as information literate. It equips the learner to swim across the large pool of information resources. Intellectual capital trumps the meaning of life. Renewing with information and skills constantly is the secret for lifelong living. The information literacy skills of a student boost their attitude towards lifelong learning (Solmaz, 2017). Continuous learning helps the survival of individual in this information society and from mere literates a metamorphosis to information literates is a needed reflection for this reality. Preparing the learners of this generation to manage and handle information effectively and develop their competence to meet the ongoing need for information for their learning is in the hands of teachers. Hence, this paper focuses on importance of the inclusion of information literacy in teacher education curriculum, the need for collaboration among the teachers and librarians as facilitators for information literacy and recommendations to enhance handling and managing information among student teachers.
Integrated Library Systems -Discovery Interface (ILS-DI): A Standard Framework for real-time connectivity with Information Discovery Applications
(NILIS Research Symposium 2020, university of Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2021) Jayakananthan, M
A library service's primary purpose is to meet library users' information needs to facilitate theirresearch, make them more educated, empower them, and fulfill their information thirsty. As adiscovery tool, a union catalog can allow end-users to learn about an item's location, availability,rapid information retrieval, multiple source search interface, etc. To date, most national andinternational union catalogs can only find a catalog purpose and lack other features. They lackreal-time availability status, placement holds, renewal, request for articles, use of ILSauthentication credentials, and expanded search features such as full-text search, facetednavigation, and resource grouping. The purpose of this paper is to solve this problem through thestandard protocol Integrated Library System–Discovery Interface (ILS–DI) by using Koha ILS atthe backend and the front-end VuFind discovery system. The developed framework was builtwith three-layer architecture with Koha ILS as a data provider, Open Archives MetadataHarvesting Protocol (OAI-PMH) as data collection protocol, and VuFind as discovery layer. AKohaILS-DI protocol designed in particular for a multi-backend driver to interlink Online PublicAccess Catalogue (OPAC) and ILS functionalities with VuFind discovery layer. The studysuggests that the framework can act as an information discovery prototype to help the entirelibrary community access the information quickly in a comprehensive way comprehensively.Also, strongly recommended implementation of ILS-DI based discovery applications inuniversities and academic libraries will increase organizations' expectations and attract theirusers with better quality services.
Library including Students with Dyslexia
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Viji, B; William Dharma Raja, B
Inclusive education policy and practice hold great promise for, improving educational equity and promoting child-friendliness in schools. Though there are many policy declarations to support every child’s inclusion in regular educational setup, the implementation is still challenging. Inclusive schooling is conquering the attention of all countries around the globe. These schools can make a difference by putting heavy emphasis on bringing forth a positive learning environment to make all the children, whether abled or disabled, to participate actively in the everyday classroom activities. Inclusion paves way to ensure a change in their lives by removing the barriers to learning, widely ranging from factors like attitude of the teachers and parents, rigid curriculum, absence of infrastructure to lack of accessible resources. Inclusive schools should be manageable and fully accessible for children with disabilities. There must be flexibility in curriculum and all resources needed for learning should be focused on each child’s specific needs. It should also be assured that all children can partake in all the classroom activities. Schools should be furnished with all equipment, technological devices and library resources to cater the needs of these children. There must be provisions for barrier free availability of Braille books, Smart boards, Interactive white boards, Magnifying lens, Reading Machines, Talking Text Books, Sign language interpreters, Computers with speech software and Transcription services for children with disability. Dyslexia, a specific learning difficulty, is one of the most common invisible, hidden learning disability and is one of the most common difficulty prevailing all over the world regardless of culture and nations. Educating these children is a great problem as it mainly affects the basic literacy skills like listening, reading, spelling and writing. British Dyslexia Association, 2013, reported about 8% of the world population has dyslexia and 4% is severely affected. A child with dyslexia has to continue as a lifelong dyslexic as it is neurobiological in origin. The child with dyslexia can only develop individual coping strategies to overcome the barriers to learning. With normal intelligence, these children often experience difficulties in reading, a crucial literacy skill which is needed to acquire information from the diversified resources. Reading is very essential at all learning environments for becoming proficient at the content. The Charter for the Reader in 1992, states that reading is the key to cultural and scientific heritage and promotes international understanding. Information searching needs word recognition and spelling skills for exploring relevant documents by using various platforms. Difficulties in reading and spelling that exist throughout the life period of a dyslexic learner, affect the way in which they search information. Libraries are the main information resource centres for reading and accessing the written language. So, the complete portrait of how dyslexics are learning should be considered by the libraries. Libraries should, for that reason, be in the lead in supporting dyslexic users to overcome this disability. There should be pleasant surrounding with needed materials for these children in a library, so that they feel enthused to visit the libraries. This paper aims to review the extent to which libraries should be inclusive in taking efforts to meet the needs of the dyslexic children. The paper also examines the best practices essential to meet the needs of dyslexic individuals, the materials that can be made available and its potential role in serving the needs of the dyslexic community. As dyslexia is as an educational issue, libraries should provide accessible materials needed for enhancing the active reading process of these students. By addressing the special needs of children with dyslexia, library continues to have an important role in self-improvement, literacy and lifelong learning of children with dyslexia. Moreover libraries should be encouraged to be inclusive to help children with dyslexia in accessing information and becoming information literate-like the non-disabled peers.
A Low-Cost Framework for the Digital Preservation of Indigenous Artwork and Languages: An Australian Case Study Review
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Derani Nathasha Dissanayake; David M. Cook
This study examined a framework for a low-cost, sustainable solution to the challenge of the Indigenous digital preservation of culture in the form of artwork and languages. In a global sense, the traditional transfer of Indigenous culture runs the risk of information loss and inconsistency when Indigenous cultural groups compete alongside mainstream Western cultural systems. Indigenous Australian culture has been passed down through traditional means from old to young, with many works of art, and discrete languages transferred without written, printed or digitised record. The study examines the challenges associated with the process of language and artwork pertaining to Indigenous Western Australians. A qualitative study using four case studies from the Kalgoorlie area of Western Australia was undertaken. All four case studies showed difficulty in adapting to digital technology for the long-term preservation of art and languages. The research findings suggest that the challenges associated with Indigenous digital preservation is due to a range of factors that collectively work to prevent or reduce the effectiveness of preservation strategies in remote and rural areas. Using these findings, the authors propose a Work Integrated Learning Digital Object Framework (WILDOF) as a sustainable, low-cost approach to the archival management of Indigenous material.
Maneuver for Blissful Lexical Access while Learning English as a Second Language
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Chandra Prabha, C; William Dharma Raja, B
It is a highly competitive and complex world and almost erudition for success in the world is reassured with English language proficiency. To remain competitive in today’s global economy a strong communication skills in English language is required. English is the global language and have now become the benchmark for employability. Present generation is aware of the fact that for shining in any field they need English language acquaintance. Students develop thirst to speak English fluently and appropriately, yet, find it difficult to gain language proficiency in English language. Secondary level students instead of taking pleasure in learning feel uninterested, restless, and irritated but occupied. Students finally feel awful about school and lose the pleasure they once felt in the primary level. Learner’s comfort and optimistic feeling has an assessable brunt on lexical access, information transmission and storage in the brain. Happy and comfortable atmosphere in the classroom helps to lower feelings of stress and increase high amounts of dopamine in the brain and create ebullient feelings for thriving lexical access and memory retention. If students are stressed, bored, frustrated by lessons, which is beyond their level of understanding or by lessons about things they have already mastered, and then the amygdala directs the input to the unconscious, involuntary, reactive brain. A blissful classroom is a dynamic, vivid and jovial place which can be designed by a catalyst teacher and improve learning by increasing dopamine and reducing amygdale of the students while learning. This paper tries to put forward the importance of lexical access, blissful classroom environment, methods and ways for the fortification of the students by blissful lexical access through classroom activities to learn English Language enchantingly and easily.
Marketing First Impressions: Library Weeks of Welcome - ‘WOW’ correlations at Orientation of Wayamba University Libraries
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Thusithakumari, W.M
“WOW” (Weeks Of Welcome) is a great way to engage students with library staff and to originate memories linked to positive feelings of accessible services and friendly people in the library. Orientation week is an exciting and high energy time of millennial generation born in between 1980 – 2000. They bring new challenges for todays’ librarians (Wheeler and Harris, 2006), they have and share their opinions rapidly via modern technologies. According to the Collins Concise Dictionary (Collins English Dictionary, 2017) “Orientation” means the adjustment or alignment of oneself of one’s ideas to surroundings or circumstances. At the beginning of the academic year of the freshers, the faculty coordinators of the orientation programmes lead activities which based on simplicity, relax, confidence and fulfillment. However these programmes provide opportunities for freshers to approach the campus with a very good first impression. The major role of the library is to make aware of the users of the use of existing resources and services. Further the library leads them to get the utmost benefit during this Library Orientation Programme (LOP). These Programmes improve the Information Literacy (IL) of the students too. The UNESCO says that the Orientation Programmes of the library supports to its users in various ways in enabling individuals to achieve his or her goals, develop knowledge and potential and participate fully in community and wider society (UNESCO, 2005). Through the Orientation Programme the user fulfills his or her information gaps when is needed and it enables users to master content and extend their investigations, become far more self-directed, assume greater control over their own learning. (Association of Collage and Research Libraries, 2000). The academic library becomes a market – oriented organism and they become hybrid libraries to familiarize the academic learning environment in e-information era. According to the Cal Poly Pomona experience (2015), one of their mission statements of orientation services is “preparing students for lifelong learning” with the goal of connecting students to valuable support resources. Hence the Orientation programmes are designed to help students adjust to university life and ultimately improve retention rates, graduation rates and grade point averages. In 2005, (Wheeler and Harris, 2006) Swarthmore College developed a winning freshman orientation programme and they continue to date. They assess freshman orientation and conclude with best practices for developing dynamic orientation programmes that provide millennial with a positive first impression of the academic library. Librarians are searching for ways to effectively market and promote library resources and services. Rhoades and Hartsell (2008) discussed in their research paper that being a part of the orientation programme allows librarians to reach students they might not be able to reach in any other context. Based on the views as part of the new students’ orientation, scheduled to showcase the Library services, spaces and collections of Wayamba University of Sri Lanka (WUSL) while having a lot of fun (Thusithakumari and Jayawardana, 2017) University libraries are given opportunities to tempt first year students to the library and its services. Often having one chance to ‘WOW’ the new comers, the librarians of the Wayamba University Library Network (WULN) have discovered a way of achieving a victorious extension and advanced programme for first year students. Dramatically over the past few years the research based on “Study on Orientation as a strategy for making great first impression of the academic library: Library Orientation ideas of Wayamba University of Sri Lanka” (Thusithakumari and Jayawardana, 2014) and it was advanced including different ideas with the new orientation programmes. These programmes are set to suit with the interest and expectations of the users. Therefore, WULN looks to provide a comfortable and productive learning environment for their patrons addressing the concept of “Library anxiety”. Library anxiety is the feeling of un-comfortableness within a library setting that has repercussion on a cognitive and behavioral level (Jiao & Onwuegbuzie, 1995).
Pattern of Author Productivity using Lotka's Law in National conference Proceedings
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Manthiramoorthi, M; Saravanakumar, R.R; Thamaraiselvi, M
This paper deals with the pattern of author productivity using Lotka’s law in national conference proceedings. The purpose of the paper to analyses the content wise distribution of the paper, types of document cited, pagination per articles, Number of keywords per articles, authorship pattern of cited references and to test Lotka’s law. The data set was created by using 31contributed papers, invited papers and abstracts were excluded from the study. The collected data was further analyzed by using M.S. Excel and Chi-square test is used to prove hypothesis. For this study total counting method was apply to test Lotka's law. The findings of the study reveals 15 (48.4%) are full text papers.50 (53.19%) of journals, magazines, and newspapers are cited followed by 21 (22.34%) of websites. 9 (60.00%) papers have the pagination of 7-12 pages, followed by 5 (33.33%) papers have the pagination of 13-18 pages. 6 (42.86%) papers are used 3 keywords, followed by 4 (28.57%) papers are used 4 keywords. cited references of single author are 26(49.06%) followed by the cited references of two authors are 14 (26.42%). the pattern of author productivity is tested by using Lotka's law. The number of publications by each author of the cited references which received equal credit by total counting method. Chi-square test is used to test the hypothesis and used to verify the applicability of Lotka's law. The result shows that Chi-square value was highly significant and Lotka's law was not applicable to this data.
Public Libraries Today: A Case Study in Anuradhapura District Public Libraries in Sri Lanka
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Wanasinghe, W.M.P.G.K.T
Public libraries play a major role in gathering, indexing, circulation, storing and finally dissemination of knowledge to satisfy the information needs to the knowledge based society. Entire public libraries under the provincial councils, urban councils and local government authorities perform their maximum duties and cater to the needs of general public in the respective areas. There are thirty four (34) public libraries in the Anuradhapura District of the North Central Province (NCP). Two libraries remained closed during the data collection period. The researcher personally visited each library and a structured questionnaire was distributed among thirty two (32) library staff members to collect data by conducting in-depth interviews. Collected data were analyzed using Microsoft excel calculations and findings were presented accordingly. Fifty percent (50%) of public libraries in Anurdhapura district are managed by Library Assistants. Nineteen percent (19%) libraries are managed by Labourers (Marga Kamkaru) indicating that they do not have a subject knowledge and administration powers especially under local government authorities. The research also found that there is no any public library staff recruited or promoted within the last fifteen years in NCP. Authorities should identify these lacks and follow immediate actions to recruit qualified staff to the public libraries and encourage them by giving promotions with proper trainings in order to uplift a knowledge-based society.
Reading Habits and Obstacles Faced by School Children in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in Sri Lanka
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Sunil, W; Amarasiri, G.D; Uditha Shyamal Gunasekara, A.K; Kamalamngani Subasinghe
Reading occupies a pivotal role in the life of a man. Reading opens the doors of the treasures of knowledge. Reading is one of the most important components of our language and it is an essential tool for lifelong learning for all learners. In order to face the 21st century, education has to prepare these learners to adapt to social and technological changes that are taking place at an unprecedented rate. In this context, reading is a resource for continued education, for the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, for gaining information through media, especially newspapers, books, radio, television and computers. Reading habits are well-planned and deliberate pattern of study which has attained a form of consistency on the part of students toward understanding academic subjects and passing at examinations. Both reading and academic achievements are interrelated and dependent on each other. Students often come from different environments and localities with different levels of academic achievement. Therefore, they differ in the pattern of reading habits (Bashir & Matto, 2012). Reading which a long-term habit starting at very early ages is the prominent gateway to the knowledge room. It can be assumed as a practice that assists individuals to gain creativeness and develops their critical thinking capacities. In this sense, reading habit is an important tool for the development of personalities and mental capacities of individuals. In addition to personal and mental developments, reading is an access to social, economic and civic life (Clark and Rumbold, 2006). In Sri Lanka education has been provided free of charge from kindergarten to university level since mid-1940s and is given in the mother tongue of the pupil. The constitution of Sri Lanka treats education as a fundamental right, making primary education compulsory for children aged five year and above. Therefore, reading and reading habits play an important role in Sri Lankan education system. Generally reading and reading habits are used to decide different attribute of the readers. National Library and Documentation Services Board (NLDSB) conducted this survey with the objective of understanding the situation of reading habit of school children in Sri Lanka. The first stage of this survey was conducted in other provinces except the Northern and Eastern provinces in 2010. This survey conducted in the Northern and Eastern provinces is the second stage on the survey. This is the first survey conducted on reading habits of school children after the war situation that prevailed in the Northern and Eastern provinces. People of the Northern and Eastern provinces suffered due to the conflict situation for more than three decades. Presently peace has been restored in these areas and this is a good opportunity for expediting the socio economic and educational development. This survey is very important because it helps to understand the situation of reading habits and plan solutions to the problems related to reading habits and library facilities in the Northern and Eastern provinces in Sri Lanka.
Research Productivity of University of Moratuwa: A Study Based on Scopus Database
(Library Network Eastern University, Sri Lanka, 2018) Thushari, M.S; Navaneethakrishnan, S
University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka is the leading technical university in Sri Lanka. Carrying out nationally relevant and high-impact research to expand the boundaries of knowledge is direted through the mission of University of Moratuwa. Therefore, purpose of this study is to identify the research productivity of University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. A Total number of 1712 publications authored by 5491 authors with the affliation University of Moratuwa during the period 1981 – 2017 (inclusive) were derived from Scopus database. The research method of this study was Scientometric analytical method using Bibexcel software. Findings of the analysis revealed that the majority of the publications in the category of conferene proceedings and contributed by multiple authors. Average degree of collaboration over the study period is 0.9. with collaborative contributors from countries like United States, Australia etc. UoM publications recorded progressively increasing degree of collaboration. Relative growth rate as well as doubling time of publiations fluctuates with positive and negative figures resulting inonsisteny. MerCon – Moratuwa Research Conference organized by Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa is listed as most sorted source of dissemination of information. Majority of the highly produtive authors and highly cited publications are from the Faculty of Engineering.

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