Library

Plagiarism is believed as a behavioral problem of students in the field of academia and one of a centered question to both faculty and administration in universities and higher education institutions. Plagiarism directly influences the academic reputation of a higher education institution and equitable academic credit for their students. In recent years, several initiatives have been taken to control the reasons for involving academic dishonesty of students by the university authorities worldwide. Awareness of students in plagiarism is the foremost fact with regard to prevention. This study is conducted to determine the awareness about plagiarism of international students while they are studying in Sri Lanka. International students studying in the Post Graduate Institute of Pali & Buddhist Studies (PGIPBS), University of Kelaniya were selected as research pillars. PGIPBS is a leading institute for Buddhist Studies and a great number of international students are pursuing higher degr...

Sri Lanka is an ideal place that attracts foreign students to pursue studies on Theravada Buddhism. There is tremendous written literature on Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Meeting required information for studies, in an unknown setting is a challenge for foreign students. Understanding of information seeking behavior by library professionals is immensely valuable for the purpose of providing better service to foreign students. Most research has examined the information behavior of Asian students within European context and only a limited number of researches in Asian libraries. This paper reports the results of a study of the information seeking behavior of

A qualified and well – trained library staff is a major factor facilitating effective library services. As a result of the rapid growth of the computer and technology, the role of the library profession, functions and its image were eventually changed. At present, the majority of non-academic staff attached to the library, university of Kelaniya are digital immigrants who have to fulfill the library requirements of the digital natives. This seems to be rather a challenge in enhancing the quality of the library services in this digital era. On the other hand, as the mission of the library states, the library functions as a ‘learning support service center’ providing a coordinated range of high quality, timely responsive, cost effective library services to its users. To fulfill that task, higher computer literacy of the library staff should be taken into account. Hence, the main objective of the study was to enhance the computer literacy of the staff while evaluating computer literacy of them was the interlinked objective. For this survey, the entire non-academic library staff (i.e. 62) was selected as the sample of the study to gather data through an online questionnaire which basically consisted of computer fundamentals and the use of computer technology in the library environment. Accordingly, the majority (i.e. 36%) of the staff was in a very satisfactory level; 22% - not satisfactory; 18% - satisfactory; 5% - excellent and 19% was absent. The enhancement of computer literacy among library staff is excepted as one main task of the Interactive Media Unit of the library. Therefore, it was decided and permitted to commence a series of workshop named ‘Library Professionals’ Training Series (LPTS) -Part I, II and III’. Accordingly, the entire staff was grouped into 3 sects based on the above evaluation and the program has already been started with a new syllabus and new teaching aids. The practical sessions were the most impressive parts in every program in which their awareness and knowledge on modern technology, technical devices, modern library trends, internet, web and related technologies could be expanded. The duration of each LPTS program is 3 months (6 hours per week). The termination of each program will be marked with issuing certificates.

Performance appraisal is one of the key management tools which identifies employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Usually, this is the major mechanism of gathering information for rewarding/training employees based on their performance, and hence a key to achieve organisational goals by creating a satisfied workforce. Therefore, this study was aimed at examining the effects of the Performance Appraisal Process on job satisfaction of the university academic staff. The information collected within one of the largest universities in the UK via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews showed that the existing appraisal process majorly aligned with the requirements of the research-excellence-framework of the UK, which is greatly concerned with research rather than teaching. Furthermore, it was found that there is no clear link between promotions, salary increments, and rewards, etc. with staff performance within the current appraisal process. Eventually, it was realised that the majori...

Employees in libraries play a key role in supporting academic and research works in the university. Therefore, it is better to understand their level of satisfaction towards their future career. This study carried out with exploring job satisfaction of 600 respondents representing all professional, para-professional and support staff categories working in 14 university libraries in Sri Lanka. Survey questionnaire with five point-Likert scale used to collect data for finding the level of job satisfaction, main factors related job satisfaction and identifying influential factors related to the context of university libraries in Sri Lanka. Study findings indicate that university library employees were satisfied with their jobs in general and nature of work and coworkers were identified as the most satisfied factors and salary and benefits and career development opportunities identified as the least satisfied factor related to job satisfaction. Therefore the present study recommends to ...

Job satisfaction of library employees’ has been a widely research topic of library and Information science studies in the world research arena. However, in Sri Lanka, few studies have been carried out relate to job satisfaction and all these studies mainly focused on the professional staff serving in university libraries. Therefore, this study carried out to fill the gap in the literature by comprehensively exploring the job satisfaction and related aspects of all three staff categories under five research objectives. A questionnaire used to collect data from 643 library employees attached to fourteen universities. Survey results revealed that, university library employees were fairly satisfied with their jobs and identified seven factors related to job satisfaction. Out of them coworkers and nature of work selected as the most influential factors of job satisfaction and inadequate work cooperation, absence of proper appreciation mechanism, gaps in communication flow and less job au...

Introduction The volume of information being published in the world during the last couple of decades has grown rapidly. Due to new research Inventions in almost every field, new information generates through out the day and at the same time information gets obsolete quickly. This situation directly affects the libraries, because library is the place where this newly generated information being collected, stored and disseminated. Due to constantly changing methods of technology and high cost of materials, libraries are unable to acquire all the knowledge being produced in the world and it has become an unattainable goal for all libraries in the world. Acquisition of all desirable materials and continuing published knowledge in almost every field , has generated a difficult situation in libraries, specially in the developing countries. Sharing of information or resources through the library cooperation provides a best solution for this critical issue. Sharing of information helps the...