Browsing by Author "Jayatissa, L.A."

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Challenges and opportunities in university librarianship: the way forward
(Professor Piyadasa Ranasinghe Foundation, 2014) Jayatissa, L.A.
Citation analysis and user studies: its importance in library management
(University of Kelaniya, 2000) Jayatissa, L.A.
The impact of the Standing Committee on Libraries and Information Sciences (SCOLIS) of UGC for the development of university libraries
(National Institute of Library and Information Sciences (NILIS), 2013) Jayatissa, L.A.
Information Literacy Skills Development Initiative at the University of Kclaniya Library: Findings of the Preliminary Survey of the New Student Intake: 2006/2007
(University of Kelaniya, 2007) Jayatissa, L.A.
The Sri Lankan school education system is now paying attention to shift their tocus from a teacher centered system to a more learner centered education system. However, due to the extreme competitive nature of the GCE (Advanced level} Examination, students have become more teacher dependent, rather than self learners. However, this situation has become a serious drawback tor the university undergraduate at the higher education level. This is adversely affecting the proper utilization of the library resources and services. The answer to this problems lies in user education in general and developing information literacy (IL) skills in particular. Initiatives have been made to address this issue at the University level by the Library. One of the primary requisites of initiating such a programme is to understand the present level of new students in terms of their library use and skills. As such, a questionnaire was sent to all new applicants ( 1 ,976) for registration for the 2006/2007 academic year to investigate their library behavior and related issues. 95% of the students responded and a random sample of 1,000 was selected for the investigation. This sample consisted of 560 Social Science and Humanities students, 305 Science students and 135 Commerce students. The summarized findings arc given below: Their school library according to the size of book collection Up to 1,000 volumes 04.5% 1,001 to 2,000 voloumes 24.0% 2,001 to 5,000 voloumcs 17.5% Over 5,000 voloumes 18°1 This shows that 70.3% of students have come trom a school where the library has a book collection of above 2,000 volumes. Although this figure is small according to international standards, it shows that there are somewhat significant libraries. This factor is specially important, as 99.8 of the respondents mentioned that their schools have school libraries hilc 98.3% said that there was a school librarian. Further, 43.4 % mentioned that they have visited the school library at least once a week. In addition 49.6% said that they have used a public library.
Information literacy skills development of undergraduate students at the University of Kelaniya library: findings of the preliminary survey of the new student intake – 2006/2007
(University of Kelaniya, 2008) Jayatissa, L.A.
Survey of information seeking behavior of new entrants to the university
(University of Kelaniya, 2011) Jayatissa, L.A.
University education is expected to be more learner-centric with higher emphasis on gathering knowledge through learning rather than teaching. As such, the library is expected to play a large role in the educational process of the university. However, the post-secondary school education is mostly directed towards achieving higher results at the GCE (A/L) examination to secure placement in public universities. This situation makes students more teacher-dependent in their studies. In view of this, in order to provide a user-focussed library information service to incoming students, it is very important to identify the nature and extent of their library use and to have a general profile of them. A structured questionnaire was administered to all newcomers at the time of their registration at the university, and almost 100% responded. A proportionate sample of 1,000 responses according to the distribution among broader disciplines of arts, commerce and science was analyzed using SPSS statistical software package and other statistical means. Questions were basically framed to investigate the aspects: how they got direction to library use; the organization of the library; whether there was a library orientation programme; use of basic reference sources; students‟ access methods used to obtain requisite information; their language and ICT use, etc. The survey is expected to identify the profile of an average student and also to identify variations between different broader disciplines. As the library possesses the data sets for a number of years, it is also envisaged to identify whether there are any observable trends. The findings of the survey will be primarily used to formulate the library acquisitions policy and to plan library information services and user education and information literacy development programmes. Further, such findings will be made available to university authorities as and when required.
පුස්තකාල කළමනාකරණය
(L.A. Jayatissa, 319/9, Waragoda road, Kelaniya, 1999) Jayatissa, L.A.