User survey on online library resources and services during the Covid-19 pandemic: A case of University of Kelaniya.

Abstract

Covid-19 is one of the tragic outbreaks of the world. Emergence of Covid-19 has become a global crisis and has created a massive impact on the day today lives of people including business, education, health, transportation and careers. Temporary closures and social distancing were introduced to limit the spread of the virus in the society. Education was drastically affected by these restrictions and preventive measures. Universities were physically closed but methods were devised to continue their educational process. Online teaching and e-learning technologies were applied in university education. Along with that, university libraries round the globe also shifted their services more towards to digital and virtual environments. In Sri Lanka too, university libraries also shifted their formal services to digital platforms as much as possible to cater to the academic community who study and work from home. This study reflects on the user’s opinion on the library resources and services rendered to them by the library, university of Kelaniya during the outbreak of Covid-19. It also investigated the challenges and barriers faced by the users using library facilities in this period. There were 264 undergraduates from the faculties of Commerce and Management Studies, Computing and Technology and Humanities participated in this survey. Adhering to the health guidelines, an online questionnaire was distributed among the study sample using the Google online form to collect data for this study. Study findings confirm that the 59% of the users were satisfied with the online library services and facilities offered by the library. Past papers repository (74.6%) was the most frequently used online library resource Technical issues and lack of awareness prevented the undergraduates from fully utilizing the online resources and services offered by the library during the pandemic.