INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS’ LEARNING PREFERENCES AND BARRIERS FACED IN ICT USE: A SURVEY OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

Authors

  • Dr. Sajjad Ahmad Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Science, university of Peshawar
  • Muhammad Arshad (MS Scholar) Assistant Librarian , Rehman Medical College, Hayatabad Peshawar
  • Arifullah

Keywords:

Information Professionals want to learn and use ICT, barriers in the learning and use of ICT, university information Professionals, ICT.

Abstract

ICT’s are rapidly developing in this era of digitization, Therefore, information professionals also need to update their knowledge and skills about ICTs not only for their personal developments, but also for their effective library services. The aim of this study was to know that how university information professionals want to learn these ICT’s, and what obstacles they faced in its use.For this purpose survey questionnaire was distributed among 118 information professionals working in the public and private sector universities of KP. The response rate was77.9% and the data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. The finding of this study showed that the preferred methods of ICT learning were ‘Discussion with friends/colleagues’ ‘Mentoring programs’, ‘Conferences’, and ‘Seminars/lecturers’ with a mean value of above 4.The finding about the barriers in use of ICT included, ‘Lack of budget for ICT’, ‘Lack of support from authorities for implementing ICT applications in libraries’, ‘No standardization in ICT use in the country, ‘Lack of policy for continuous professional developments’, and ‘Insufficient library staff’. It was recommended that a separate budget should be allocated in the universities or its libraries for training of their information professionals and whenever a new technology is acquired the information professionals’ should be given an orientation or in-house training about the newly implemented ICT’s. The information professionals should be encouraged to attend various programs such as seminar, conference and workshop on ICT. They should be given proper incentives in this regard.

Author Biographies

Dr. Sajjad Ahmad, Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Science, university of Peshawar

Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Science, university of Peshawar

Muhammad Arshad, (MS Scholar) Assistant Librarian , Rehman Medical College, Hayatabad Peshawar

(MS Scholar) Assistant Librarian , Rehman Medical College, Hyatabad Peshawar

Arifullah

ICT’s are rapidly developing in this era of digitization, Therefore, information professionals also need to update their knowledge and skills about ICTs not only for their personal developments, but also for their effective library services. The aim of this study was to know that how university information professionals want to learn these ICT’s, and what obstacles they faced in its use.For this purpose survey questionnaire was distributed among 118 information professionals working in the public and private sector universities of KP. The response rate was77.9% and the data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. The finding of this study showed that the preferred methods of ICT learning were ‘Discussion with friends/colleagues’ ‘Mentoring programs’, ‘Conferences’, and ‘Seminars/lecturers’ with a mean value of above 4.The finding about the barriers in use of ICT included, ‘Lack of budget for ICT’, ‘Lack of support from authorities for implementing ICT applications in libraries’, ‘No standardization in ICT use in the country, ‘Lack of policy for continuous professional developments’, and ‘Insufficient library staff’. It was recommended that a separate budget should be allocated in the universities or its libraries for training of their information professionals and whenever a new technology is acquired the information professionals’ should be given an orientation or in-house training about the newly implemented ICT’s. The information professionals should be encouraged to attend various programs such as seminar, conference and workshop on ICT. They should be given proper incentives in this regard.

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Published

2022-02-28

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Articles