Abstract:
The field of Agriculture is often interrelated with novel technologies. To keep them and
to tackle with the challenges in higher education, agriculture students need to develop
Information Literacy (IL) skills. As the majority of school libraries and public libraries
of Sri Lanka are not well equipped with technologies and the qualified staff, school
children face difficulties in developing their information literacy skills. This paper
investigates the IL level of new students of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of
Ruhuna. Employing a survey, 230 students from the new intake - 2014 were selected as
the sample. Structured questionnaires were distributed among the 230 students at the
library orientation. This study used the sample survey method. The overall response rate
was 66.5%. The survey revealed that 90.2% of fresh students have accessed to internet
before entering to the university. The majority of them (52.3%) had sometimes accessed
to Internet. 66% of students had their own computers with Internet facility. 50.4%
students used the internet for their academic work and entertainment. Findings reveal
that Google Chrome (56.9%) and Mozilla Firefox (36%) are the most popular and
widely used Web browsers. Google (88.8%) and Yahoo (24.2%) are most popular and
widely used search engines among students in the intake 2014. The survey also found
that they were not aware with the Web searching techniques. Majority of students (34%)
used keywords to retrieve information while 23.4% of students have no idea regarding
the web searching techniques such as Boolean search, phrase search and truncation
search. 98.1% of students have used the school library while 62.1% of students have
used the public Library for seeking information before entering the university. Majority
of students (60.8%) used public library to read novels. Although they have used
libraries, 81.6% of them had no experience of using the library catalogue. The study
shows that fresh students are seriously lack of necessary IL skills. Majority of
respondents (97.4%) have mentioned that they need to develop their IL skills. The study
recommends that a carefully designed IL course to be introduced for all agriculture
students at University of Ruhuna. In addition, importance of including “Information
Literacy ” as a subject module in the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate
courses of agriculture in Sri Lanka are highlighted.
