Abstract:
A survey was carried out in the Library, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna to assess
the usage and awareness of the undergraduates on the main information resources and services of
the library. Questionnaire method of survey was used for data collection among 140
undergraduates who were selected for the study using stratified random sampling technique. Out
of main services offered by the Library, the basic lending and reference service and the access to
online catalogue were highly used by the respondents while the Inter Library Loan service is used
by only 12.7% respondents. The awareness as well as usage is high of the main resources such as
books and journals but CD-ROM collection was under-utilized due to unawareness of the
availability. In response to their level of satisfaction against various facilities of the library, the
results revealed that the majority of respondents (94.9%) were satisfied about the collection of the
library. Among them 34.7% are highly satisfied while 60.1% are somewhat satisfied about the
library collection. The respondents were also satisfied about the reading room facility (37. 3%),
general condition and maintenance (39.8%) and the noise level (53.4%) of the library. It is
interesting to note that more respondents (54.2%) were very satisfied about the library staff
support. Respondents showed their dissatisfaction against the availability of computer facility and
seating capacity of the library. Majority of respondents suggested that user awareness programs
should be adopted to make aware of the resources and services available in the library to enhance
the usage of resources and services offered by the Library.
