Information Literacy among Undergraduate Students of Sri Venkateswara Medical College and Guntur Medical College, Andhra Pradesh: A Survey

Abstract

Today Information Literacy has become vital because of proliferation of information resources in all forms. Information literacy is a set of abilities require for individuals to identify the need for information, find, locate, evaluate and use information effectively and efficiently. The Present study explores information literacy among the students of Sri Venkateswara Medical College & Guntur Medical College, affiliated to NTR University of Health Sciences, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. The survey method was adopted for the study and 225 questionnaires were circulated among the medical students and 195 were received back for analysis with a response rate of 86.66%. Majority of the respondents were able to determine their information needs, types of information resources available; utilization of e-resources, and know the levels of awareness of social networking sites. This study found that a majority of the respondents of both medical colleges are needed information for updating their subject knowledge, frequently utilized information sources, social networking sites of both medical colleges. Most of the respondents here given top priority high skills in getting information in print and electronic format. They rarely used search engines of both medical college students are viz., infoseek, AltaVista, lycos, MySpace and LinkedIn social networking sites.