Examination of the use of information technology applications for online searching: the case of the University of Dar es Salaam Library
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Date
2000
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Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is now wide spread in various sectors, including libraries and information centres. At the University of Dar es Salaam library in Tanzania ICT facilitates the availability of information to Library users. The adoption, use and application of ICT at the University of Dar es Salaam library was intended to enable users to have access to online and electronic reference materials for their academic endeavours. Application of ICT facilities at the University library is still in its infant stages, though the number of users has been increasing steadly. This study looked at how ICT allows students to have access to a variety of reference materials other than books. However, findings of this study show that most users do not take full advantage of the available facilities to retrieve online information, instead they use ICT for communication purposes especially corresponding using the Internet. The failure by the students to utilize ICT effectively for information retrieval could be attributed to lack of information searching and retrieval skills. Therefore there is a need to introduce bibliographic instruction programmes to allow students to take full advantage of ICT facilities at the University library to solve the problem of shortage of reference books and current literature.
Description
Available in print form, East Africana Collection, Dr. Wilbert Chagula Library, Class mark (THS EAF Z699.T34A93)
Keywords
Information technology, Study and teaching, Tanzania, Online bibliographic searching, Machine readable bibliographic data, University of Dar es Salaam Library
Citation
Augustino, D. M. (2000) Examination of the use of information technology applications for online searching: the case of the University of Dar es Salaam Library, Master dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam