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Teachers lack resources at Lankan libraries: Study

26 Apr 2021

  • Outdated materials, difficulty finding resources major problems  

  The lack of relevant materials in school libraries, the lack of information about available sources, the unavailability of electronic resources, outdated library materials, and the difficulty in finding resources from the existing collections are the main problems encountered by teachers when using school libraries, a recent study found.  Teachers, the study found, use school libraries primarily to obtain information for their own reading and also to obtain information to supplement classroom teaching and to keep abreast with current information in subject areas related to their teaching purposes.  The results of the study also revealed that most of the teachers apprehend that the library should provide more services for teachers as most of them are uncertain about their ability to use the library easily. In this regard, most of the teachers, the study found, had agreed that user awareness programmes conducted by libraries were very helpful and that they were satisfied about the helpfulness of library staff.  These observations were made by University of Peradeniya Main Library Senior Assistant Librarian C. Gunasekera and Bharathidasan University in Tiruchirappalli in India Department of Library and Information Science Assistant Professor R. Balasubramani, in an article titled “Library usage pattern of school teachers in Sri Lanka: Problems and issues” published recently in the Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka.  School libraries are precious sources of information that contribute to productive educational achievement. They are an imperative supplement to education as well as a base for generating creative thinking, cultural improvement, and the self development of a person. The school library, therefore, is an essential institution for a learning society that helps teachers and students in achieving educational goals. The school library also has the full potential to improve the quality of educational processes in a school since it provides knowledge and skills for students and teachers. Today, most of the resources that are relevant to teaching, can be obtained in digital form and as a result, users are changing their habits as they do not need to come to a physical library to obtain information. The physical library has become a student-dominated place and the usage of the physical library by teachers has declined dramatically since the mid-1990s.  On the other hand, it is believed that school teachers are the key players in successful education and their teaching and learning can be enhanced by establishing functional libraries with professionally qualified librarians.  Moreover, libraries need to continue working on the information-related needs of users because users’ needs are changing continuously. The understanding of users’ information needs and the level of their satisfaction towards library services will be helpful to improve library services to keep up with upgraded information systems in a digital age with limited funding.  I.A. Mokhtar and S. Majid found in the “Use of school libraries by teachers in Singaporean schools” in 2005 that teachers did not use school libraries effectively. D. Williams and L. Coles found in “Evidence-based practice in teaching: An information perspective” in 2007 that teachers had perceived the school library as a resource for pupils and not for their own professional development. They further found that the lack of time and lack of access to research information in the school library were significant barriers for school teachers gathering information. G. Tachie-Donkor and P. Dadzie in 2017 on “Developing teachers information literacy capabilities in secondary schools in Ghana: A comparative study of the two best schools in the central region” found that secondary school teachers had used school libraries to supplement their teaching notes on a topic or subject to be taught in schools and to keep abreast with the current information in their subject areas. However, most of them had claimed that materials available in school libraries were not relevant for their teaching. A similar study conducted by S. Korobili, A. Malliari, E. Daniilidou, and G. Christodoulou in 2011 titled “A paradigm of information literacy for Greek high school teachers” found that most of the teachers preferred using their personal collection rather than the library collection because the library did not comprise relevant materials that could help them in developing the curriculum. The study further found that teachers did not have the requisite skills that are needed to browse the library's collections. M. Asselin and R. Doiren in 2003 in “Whither they go: An analysis of the inclusion of school library programmes and services in the preparation of pre-school teachers in Canadian universities” noted that school library programmes were not included in the training of pre-service teachers and that as a result, most of the teachers were unable to develop adequate skills for the effective use of school libraries. Another study by D. McLelland and J. Crawford in 2004 titled “The Drum Chapel Project: A study of information and communications technology usage by school pupils and teachers in a secondary school in a deprived area of Glasgow” revealed that the school library was seriously underutilised by teachers as a result of limited staff. In the Sri Lankan context, the study conducted by S. Rathnayake in 2013 titled “An analytical study on the library usage of school teachers for the teaching process” found that most of the teachers visited the library to find information that was relevant for the subjects that they taught in schools. In addition, they used school libraries for reading newspapers (32%) and for referring curriculum-related materials (28%) such as syllabi and teacher’s guides. The study further revealed that school libraries helped teachers by providing supplementary reading materials that are relevant for teaching. Out of the total, 76% of the respondents had mentioned that the library helped teachers by providing required materials for their professional development as well. With regard to the frequency of library use, the majority (72%) had visited the library when the need arose and 20% visited once a week which gave evidence of the poor usage of the library by teachers. It was further evident from the study that the lack of time and heavy workload were the main problems encountered by teachers when using libraries. The participants who took part in this study by Gunasekera and Balasubramani were all in-service graduate teachers who followed postgraduate courses at the Department of Education of the University of Peradeniya. The total population of graduate school teachers who work in government schools as per the Statistical Abstract of 2017 is 106,756. Based on sample size calculation, 400 were determined as the sample of the present study from the above population (106,756). A specifically designed self-administered questionnaire was used as the main data collection tool and 400 questionnaires were distributed randomly among the participants at their lecture halls in September 2018, and 318 returned, resulting in a 79.5% response rate. The majority of the sample (88%) was female. With regard to the age of the respondents (20-30 years; 31-40 years; 41-50 years; more than 50 years), the majority were in the 31-40 years age group, with the remainder being between 20-30 (20%) or 41-50 (19.5%) years. Work experience was gauged on the basis of less than one year, one to five years, six to 10 years, and more than 10 years. More than half of the respondents had engaged in the teaching profession for one to five years. Teachers who had been in the profession for six to 10 years made up 23.6% of the sample, followed by more than 10 years (23.9%). With regard to the area the school was located in (central city; suburb; rural; no response), more than one-third of the respondents, 125 (39%) indicated that their schools were situated in a suburban area followed by 35% in a rural area and 24% in a central city. The schools where the respondents taught were fairly represented, with town areas as well as rural areas. The respondents were queried as to whether they used the library to obtain information that was relevant for teaching. A total of 270 (84.9%) respondents indicated that they used the library to obtain information to fulfil their information needs while 48 respondents (15.1%) indicated that they did not use the library to fulfil their information needs. When the respondents were questioned as to whether they met their information needs from the library, 80.8% mentioned that their information needs were fulfilled by the library while 11.3% mentioned that their needs were not fulfilled by the library. A minority (7.9%) refrained from responding. Respondents were requested to mark the reasons for their school library use (support own reading; support classroom teaching; keep abreast with current information; lesson preparation; reading newspapers/magazines; the use of reference books). The majority of the respondents used the school library to obtain information for their own reading, to get supplementary information for classroom teaching and to keep abreast with current information in their subject areas. More than 75% of the respondents used the library for lesson preparation followed by reading newspapers or magazines and for reference. The respondents were then requested to rate the level of the adequacy of the information resources available in the school library by using five scales; namely, “very good”, “good”, “fair”, “below standard”, and "no response". At the same time, they were asked to indicate as to how they access information available in the library (browse through the library stock; seek help from the library staff; use the library catalogue) and the action that they took if they did not meet their information needs from the library (ask the officer in charge of the library for assistance; seek help from the internet; consult a fellow colleague who is a teacher; give up). According to the results, for more than 40% of the respondents, the information resources and facilities available at the school’s library were “fair” followed by “good” (26%), “below standard” (15.4%), and “very good” (6.3%). With regard to accessing the library, the majority of the respondents had accessed the library by browsing the library stock (79.6%), while 75.5% sought help from the library staff and only 44% of them used the library catalogue. It was further revealed that the majority (83%) of the respondents had asked the officer in charge of the library for assistance or sought help from the internet to find information wherever they were not available at the school library. Of the respondents, 75% consulted colleague teachers whereas 4.4% gave up when their information needs were not met by the school library.  The respondents were asked about the frequency of their visits to their school library (daily; weekly; monthly; occasionally; rarely; no response). More than one-third of the respondents indicated that they visited the library weekly, while 25.8% visited occasionally, 14.2% visited the library monthly, and only 9.4% visited the library daily. As a whole, the authors noted that the results confirmed that a majority of the respondents had not been to their school libraries regularly. The respondents were requested to rate how much they agreed on the given statements about library-related skills. In this regard, a five points scale was utilised (from one to five, where one indicated “strongly disagree”, two indicated "disagree”, three indicated "neutral", four indicated "agree", and five indicated “strongly agree”). Statements are listed in descending order according to the mean scores (the library should provide more services for teachers; the library is easy to use; I know what resources are available in the library; I can usually find the resources I need in the library; I think that my ability to use the library has had a negative effect on my teaching; my knowledge of the library is limited to my area of interest; I am uncomfortable using the library catalogue; it is difficult to locate the materials I need in the library; the library's resources in and for my areas of interest are satisfactory; I am comfortable using the computers inside the library; the library offers enough information, skills, and training sessions for teachers; there are too many possible sources of information). It was found that 64% of the respondents were of the opinion that the school library should provide more services for the teachers (a total of 318 cases were analysed and it was significantly predicted that the "library should provide more services for teachers”), while 45% of the respondents felt that the library was easy to use and 38% of the respondents had confidence about their awareness on the resources available in the library. However, the majority (72%) disagreed on the statement “availability of too many information sources in the library” while 55% of the respondents disagreed on the “adequacy of information training sessions offered by the library for the teachers” and 45% of the respondents disagreed on the statement “comfortable use of the computers in the library”. These results give an insight, the researchers explained, that the teachers had the skills on the easy use of libraries while they were also aware about the resources available at the library. At the same time, they urged that more library services be provided for the teachers. On the other hand, they felt that the libraries lack information sources and therefore, in turn urged the library to offer more information skills-related training sessions for teachers. The respondents were asked to rate their level of satisfaction (library user awareness programmes are helpful; staff in the library is helpful; the library arrangement is good and relevant information sources could be easily located; the library catalogue provides easy access to library resources; I am satisfied with the resources available in the subjects that I teach; the library has a current and updated collection). It was found that more than half of the respondents agreed on the statement that the “library arrangement is good and that the relevant information sources could be easily located” while less than half of the respondents agreed on the “helpfulness of user awareness programmes conducted by the library” (47%) and “helpfulness of library staff” (46%) statements. However, there was a substantial proportion of respondents who were uncertain (43%) or dissatisfied (38%) with regard to the library resources available in the subjects that they taught and 45% of the respondents indicated their disagreement on the statement that the “library has a current and updated collection”. The results revealed that a substantial proportion of respondents were satisfied about the library services, particularly on user awareness programmes, staff assistance, and library arrangement but that they were not satisfied about the availability of current and updated resources in their subject fields. The respondents were asked to indicate the types of problems they encountered in using their school libraries. The topmost problems that are encountered by teachers when using the library were listed (the lack of relevant materials in the school's library; the lack of information about available sources; the non-availability of electronic resources such as electronic journals; the required materials are not available; the latest information sources are not available or that the material is outdated; difficulty in finding information from existing sources; information is scattered in too many sources; the lack of support from the library staff; library staff is incompetent or not well trained; the lack of knowledge in using the library). Based on the results, it can be seen that the majority had faced some problems such as the lack of relevant materials in the library, the lack of information on the available resources, the non-availability of electronic resources, and outdated library collections. In order to find out whether any associations between the library awareness skills of teachers and the four selected variables of gender, age, experience, and school location, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. The same library skill scale was used. It was found that there was no association between library awareness skills of the teachers and the four variables of gender, age, work experience, and school location.  Based on the findings of the study, the researching duo recommended the upgrading of school libraries with necessary information resources and services to develop the knowledge and skills of teachers, the provision of more up-to-date information materials relevant to school teaching and learning, conducting information literacy skills courses for teachers in order to make use of the library more effectively and enable them to transfer these skills to the learners, and the development of innovative marketing strategies in libraries to promote services that are offered for school teachers.


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