Submitted to the Department of Library and Information Science
for the degree of Master of Library and Information Science, in the Faculty of Arts, at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2002. / The study investigates the use of electronic journals for the dissemination of scholarly
information at the Universities of Natal and Zululand and attempts at determining the
level of electronic journal use by the scholarly communities, and the perceived impact
that these journals have on the community. Similarly, the role-played by the academic
libraries in the provision of the journals has been explored. The scholarly community
included the academic staff, the library staff and postgraduate students at the two
universities. A survey research method was used to elicit information from the
subjects. The population was sampled by use of stratified random sampling
technique. Firstly, five academic faculties were selected, four from the University of
Zululand, and three from the University of Natal. This was done by first drawing an
alphabetical list of the academic staff in faculties by academic status. Secondly, The
Deans were approached for permission to seek assistance of various heads of
departments and heads of schools in distributing the questionnaires to postgraduate
students. However, with postgraduate students it was not possible to secure a usable
list as most of them are part timers and far away from campus. As a result as many
questionnaires were distributed to postgraduate students before they were randomly
selected for the sample. Ultimately, a sample of 10% was drawn from the population
of 1969 postgraduate students. Regarding the academic staff a sample of 20% was
drawn from each strata. The total population for the academic staff was 557. All
professional librarians in the two university libraries were identified and included in
the study. Data available in the university calendars and the figures obtained from the
Division of Information Technology and Faculty Administration Offices was invaluable.
Two sets of questionnaires were administered to the two groups, one to the academic
staff and postgraduate students and the other one to the library staff. The sample
frame was distributed as follows: 197 postgraduate students, 111 academic staff and
34 library staff. Data was analyzed by means of the SYSTAT Version 7.0 and
Microsoft Exel for coding data. The results show that the level of electronic journal
use by the two universities is still low, because, as a matter of verification.
respondents found it difficult to select the type of journals they use most between
electronic journals and printed journals. A large number (61 %) identified printed
vi
joumals. There is a slight difference between the various disciplines in the use and
understanding of electronic joumals. It is reccmmended that the academic library
should provide the facilities where users could access electronic joumals on their own
as well as the marketing of the available services to the library clientele. There is a strong need of user education, more especially in the use of electronic joumals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/41 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Mgobozi, Margaret Nonhlanhla |
| Contributors | Ocholla, D.N. |
| Publisher | University of Zululand |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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