| dc.description.abstract | The study project was entitled: “A website for the Agriculture Research Information Services (ARIS) Library Kawanda” that was carried out at National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NARL) institute located in Kawanda. The aim of this project was to propose a website for ARIS library so as to enhance service delivery.
The project study was guided by thesix objectives which include establishing the information needs of ARIS library, identifying services offered by ARIS library, examining sources of information at ARIS library, reviewinginformation services provision at ARIS library, examining the challenges faced in the provision of information at ARIS library, designing a website for ARIS library that could address some of the challenges faced above.
The data collection methods for the study were: the questionnaire and interview data collection methods. Convenience sampling was used to select the sample size that consisted of 5 Administrators, 5 secretaries, 3 librarians, 7 program leaders, 5 project leaders, 5 research scientists, 5 research assistants, 10technicians, 2 farm managers and 10 masters’ students, a total of 57 respondents was sampled.…...
Major findingsof the study included: the identifiedInformation needs of ARIS library users were current journal titlesthat provide current agricultural information, electronic data bases, theses, books and research reports contributing to agricultural research. The established services offered by ARIS library website were: information, education and circulation services, reference services, current awareness services, trainings, access and services related to library space,. The Information services provision at ARIS library preferred weresearching & browsing as well asreference services. The Sources of information at ARIS libraryshowed that the library and Internet are the main sources that agricultural researchers use to obtain most useful information.. Established challenges in the provision of information at ARIS library included:Inadequate funding, Non-compliance with the demands of ICT, Poor working conditions, Lack of ICT facilities, Lack of motivation and the major constraints militating against user satisfaction were out dated library materials, inadequate user education and slow processing of data. The proposed website for ARIS library was designed, tested and validated using functionality, usability and compatibility system testing after which the challenges in website designing were pointed out.
It was concluded that there was a gap in providing the relevant and current information to the ARIS Library users, the services provided were not known to some of the users, there was no website whereinformation could be accessed while enhancing thevisibility of the library.
Recommendations: ARIS libraryshouldprovide information asper the needsof the users identified, current and relevant information should be provided, to adopt the proposed web site.The library website shall lead the user to all kinds of agricultural information resources held in the library, whether printed, electronic, audio visual or in any other media and also promote the visibility of the library. | en_US |
