Internet As An Information Source Information Technology Essay

The Internet is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks. Internet is also described as the worldwide publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). Internet is the transport vehicle for the information stored in files or documents on another computer. It carries together various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web. The Internet itself does not contain information, it is a slight misstatement to say a “document was found on the Internet.” It would be more correct to say it was found through or using the Internet. What it was found in (or on) is one of the computers linked to the Internet.

Every aspect of our day to day life is affected by the internet. Whether it is shopping, business, banking, communication, paying your bills, social gathering, party, learning, education etc. Internet is everywhere, knocking at our door, making our life easier and smooth. Moreover, when it comes to education and research internet is paving way for a great leap and sure library and information centers has no exception. The internet made the information on our finger tips. The libraries of the developed world has adopted the internet facilities to provide the fast and better library services to its patron but this is not the case with many developing nations and third world countries. The libraries of the third world countries still do not have the basic internet access facilities in many cases because of the poor funding and budget crisis, while we are talking about web 2.0 in countries like United States, Europe and other developed nations. This paper has also tried to explore broadly the importance of internet with regard to access of information sources and its utilities for library patrons in academic organizations and institutions.

Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is a residential academic institution located in the city of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. Originally it was Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, which was founded by a great Muslim social reformer Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in 1875 and in 1920 it was granted a status of Central University by an Act of Indian Parliament. Modelled on the University of Cambridge, it was among the first institutions of higher learning set up during the British Raj. Aligarh Muslim University offers more than 250 courses in traditional and modern branch of education. The University is open to all irrespective of caste, creed, religion or gender. For more information please logon to university website: www.amu.ac.in.

Literature Review

Pangannaya, N.B. (2000) conducted a study i.e. “Use of Internet by the Academic Community: a Case Study”. This paper is an attempt to investigate the use of internet resources by the academic community of Mysore University, using survey as the research tool. The paper has investigated the faculty wise frequency and length of use of the internet. Moreover, it describes the emergence of internet, has revolutionized the academic world.

Darries, Fatima (2004) has discussed various issues related to internet based reference services under the given title “Internet access and use in reference services in higher education institutions in South Africa”. An electronic survey was conducted using the web and e-mail to distribute the questionnaire. The target population was the heads of reference services at large libraries and the directors at smaller libraries of the 36 higher education institutions in South Africa. The response rate to the questionnaire was 28 (30.4 %); two returned questionnaires were spoilt. These results showed that all libraries surveyed have Internet access, and all but one provided access to their users. Librarians had access to the Internet for a longer period than their users. User internet training tended to be on a one-to-one basis at the point-of-use.

Jay, Margaret and Webber, Sheila (2005) conducted a research study under the title “Impact of the internet on delivery of reference services in English public libraries” The study aims to investigate the impact of the internet on reference services in public libraries in England. A questionnaire was administered in 2003 to a sample of the public library authorities in England, investigating the use of the internet for receiving or answering reference enquiries, the use of electronic reference sources, and the nature of public library web sites. The paper concludes by identifying the need for public library managers to assess the changing role of professionals and Para-professionals in delivering reference services, and to provide appropriate training. It also notes that despite the discussion of real-time reference, asynchronous digital reference is still more common in England.

The above table 4.7 clearly shows the results about the users’ satisfaction level with internet based information services when compare to print medium. The above table shows that 41 i.e. (45.05%) users are highly satisfied with the internet based information services in comparison to print sources. On the other hand 36 i.e. (39.65%) users have given the average rating to the internet as a source of information access compare to printed sources, while 14 i.e. (15.38%) users are very highly satisfied with internet based information services.

The investigators have tried to find out problems pertaining to internet access among the research scholars & PG students of the Science faculty in AMU. The investigators find out the major problems and hindrance in this regard shown in the table No. 4.8. The great response in this section is about the slow internet speed. 72 i.e. (47.68%) users complained about the slow internet speed, 28 i.e. (18.54%) users feel that there are lack of sufficient internet connected terminals in the department / library, which hinders them to properly utilize their time at the optimum level. Moreover 19 i.e. (12.58%) users face the problem of too many hits or information overload, 17 i.e. (11.25%) reported about the problem of the missing link / broken link. In addition to that, 12 i.e. (7.94%) users feels that the staff in the computer section of department / library are not technically very sound and therefore needs training and sound technical knowledge. 3 i.e. (1.98%) users complained about the irrelevant retrieval or lack of precision while trying to find out relevant information on the Internet.

The investigators clearly find that the most of the research Scholars & PG students have the internet access facility in their departments. They also find out that the users from science faculty access the internet on various locations, most of the users are using internet in the departments and in the university central library. They are also browsing the internet in the university computer centre. They are going least to cyber cafes for using internet. The present study also says that the most of the research scholars & PG students of the science faculty are exploiting the internet services for their research work. Apart from that they are using internet for keeping themselves abreast with the latest development in the world, for communication purposes, and to search the career development information. Most of the research scholars & PG students are using the J-gateway to access the various online journals either from the respective departments, central library browsing section, or from the university computer centre. Moreover, the present study states that the print information sources have been affected due to the use of internet based information services in the science faculty and the user’s satisfaction is quite high vis-à-vis print sources of information. In addition to that, research scholars & PG students find Internet based information services easy to use. It is clear from the present study that most of the users utilize the internet for searching the subject oriented information. Apart from that, majority of the users are satisfied with the accuracy of the internet based information sources.