INTRODUCTION:

Digital library in present time have emerged as essential information systems in field of research and teaching [1]. Engineering colleges maintain huge conventional libraries that host diversified information sources on single topic [2]. With advent of digital age and penetration of information and communication technology these colleges have set up their own digital repositories that are now termed as digital libraries [3]. Digital libraries are new phenomenon and like is with every new technology system face challenges of acceptance, utilization and evaluation.

Different students perceive digital library differently. But it is a common belief that digital library is extension of already existing library services with remote access to digitized resources. Traditionally digital library is defined as the collection of digitized or digitally born contents that are serviced, managed and stored by the professionals in charge of maintaining library services.

There has been an exponential growth of digital libraries [4]. Use and access to digital libraries has become critical to researchers and academicians. Digital libraries are different from search engines and online open database. Digital libraries have very well-organized metadata and categories that can be browsed for [5]. The contents that are available in the digital libraries are of diverse formats.

In this research work an attempt has been made to evaluate the factors that play major role in compelling a user to use digital library. The study has been performed in context to private engineering colleges of Raipur. 8 Private Colleges were selected for the study.

METHODOLOGY:

For the research 460 students from various private engineering colleges of Raipur were approached to respond to the survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire was aimed to gauge the responses of the survey participants related to questions asked. The questions in the survey questionnaire was so framed to analyse the question that “What are the essential factors students are considering? when they opt for information search process on Digital Library Platform”. The questions were to be ranked on scale of 1 to 12 rank based on preference of students. The preferenceswere to be made on the priority students keep while opting for digital library during their information search process. The questions were factors that students consider while opting for the use of digital library. These factors were selected from various literature sources and already published research work that focused on similar themes.

Number of respondents targeted were 460. Only 408 questionnaires were received filled. On random basis only 400 filled responses were selected for analysis.

The factors that were asked to be ranked by the students are mentioned below.

1. Accessibility – Students belong to different physical characteristics, some are short while some are height. In library height of the book shelves become an issuefor short heighted students and accessibility to certain books and content on the shelve gets restricted. Use of digital library pose no such restriction to anyone.

2. Reliability – The information that is being searched should be reliable. Reliability of information is matter of personal choices. Some students consider digital information as reliable while some still opt for printed form of information.

3. Responsiveness – The information that is needed to be searched should be accessible to the user with in quick time. When opting for printed material the student needs to traverse from shelf to shelf to search for the same. This consumes substantial amount of time. Digital library responds quick to information search request. Potential list of information appears on user screen with in few seconds.

4. User Satisfaction –The information provided by the library should lead to the satisfaction of the user. A dissatisfied user might not return to the portal for second time.

5. Usefulness – Usefulness of the library and the information provided by it is matter of personal choice. A user might consider digital library useful while another user might find the concept entirely useless. The usefulness of the library depends on time required to search information, environmental conditions of library, seating arrangement, digital inventory size, how indexing is done and various other parameters.

6. Type of Services– Like conventional library services, digital library too offers services like bookmarking, news clipping and snippet. Some library users depend heavily on these services and availability of these services will only lead to use of library by them.

7. Content – Content is the most important aspect in the information search process. The primary requirement of the user is the content of the information. The content should be as per the expectation of the user. If the user has to repeatedly use the library he or she should be able to retrieve useful and substantial content from the library related to the information need.

8. Special Services – Digital library offers special services like sorting, saving, bookmarking of links and indexing of content. Some users find these services useful and effective over conventional library.

9. Service quality – Service quality is essential; primarily the services of the digital library should not go down. Library down time should be minimum or uptime should be nearly 99.99%. Secondly all the services and tools offered by the library should work as expected.

10. Customized service – Some digital library offers user specific or discipline specific services, which is useful for engineering students. Mechanical engineering students have different needs, while electronic engineering student have different need.

11. Exposure to information–Users have specific information search need while using library services. Users look for contents that can fulfil their need. Digital library due to its option providing services or as it presents a potential list of information sources, users tends to navigate around different shown options and in that process user might come across information that might be helpful in near future or is satisfying the users secondary information need. This results in gain of knowledge by the user and the user is able to expand its information base.

12. Operational feature – The interface of the digital library should be friendly. The user experience should be exceptional and free flow. Every user should feel the same ease of access. The tools offered in digital library services should work as expected and should require minimum assistance from third party to operate.

The responses so received will be analysed using Henry Garret Rank Analysis. This analytical method will result in arrangement of factors in a manner that will have the most considered and prioritised factors on the top of the list while the least prioritised factor appearing at the bottom of the list.

ANALYSIS

Table 1 presents the tabulated responses received from the survey respondents.

Table 1 Received Response Tabulated

Factors	Rank à	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Total
ACCESSIBILITY		33	23	6	45	37	32	20	24	102	55	8	15	400
RELIABILITY		9	45	4	2	3	42	93	78	54	21	18	31	400
RESPONSIVENESS		11	42	23	72	23	23	31	33	32	3	97	10	400
USER SATISFACTION		8	34	41	9	80	88	24	34	12	41	10	19	400
USEFULNESS		20	33	45	9	40	12	34	21	65	14	83	24	400
TYPE OF SERVICES		21	14	43	45	87	33	9	45	18	4	23	58	400
CONTENT		100	84	65	36	28	24	19	11	4	5	7	17	400
SPECIAL SERVICES (SORTING/SAVING/INDEXING)		6	1	6	32	43	47	93	23	33	76	5	35	400
SERVICE QUALITY		40	3	16	21	4	42	20	57	22	104	49	22	400
CUSTOMIZED SERVICES		51	19	3	42	2	28	24	56	31	19	23	102	400
EXPOSURE TO INFORMATION		93	99	56	31	24	17	19	15	22	4	14	6	400
OPERATIONAL FEATURES (HOW TO OPERATE DL AND SEARCH INFO)		8	3	92	56	29	12	14	3	5	54	63	61	400
Total		400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400

Source: Survey Response

From the table 1 presented above, the number of respondents that have ranked factors as 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd ------12^th has been presented row wise. The factors have occupied column wise entry, while ranks have occupied row wise entry.

The above table can be explained as, 33 respondents have ranked accessibility as rank 1, 23 as ranks 2, 6 as rank 3, 45 as rank 4, 37 as rank 5, 32 as rank 6, 20 as rank 7, 24 as rank 8, 102 as rank 9, 55 as rank 10, 8 as rank 11 and 15 as rank 12.

The similar explanations can be written for other factors as well. To reduce the redundancy the description has been skipped for other factors.

Table 2 describes the next step of the process of Henry Garret Rank Analysis. The next step is to calculate the Percent Score. Table 2 presents the calculated Percent Score and the equation used to calculate it.

Table 2 Percent Score Calculation

Rank	Equation (100 X (Rank – 0.5)/12)	Score
1	(100 X (1 – 0.5)/12	4.166666667
2	(100 X (2 – 0.5)/12	12.5
3	(100 X (3 – 0.5)/12	20.83333333
4	(100 X (4 – 0.5)/12	29.16666667
5	(100 X (5 – 0.5)/12	37.5
6	(100 X (6 – 0.5)/12	45.83333333
7	(100 X (7 – 0.5)/12	54.16666667
8	(100 X (8 – 0.5)/12	62.5
9	(100 X (9 – 0.5)/12	70.83333333
10	(100 X (10 – 0.5)/12	79.16666667
11	(100 X (11 – 0.5)/12	87.5
12	(100 X (12 – 0.5)/12	95.83333333

Source: Survey Response

Table 2 presents the calculated percent score associated with each rank.

Once the score has been calculated, the Garret table was used to derive the Garret values associated with the Score. Once the values are derived from the table, the values will be multiplied column wise to the table 1.

Table 3 Garret Value multiplied column wise to table 1

Factors	Rank à	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Sum
ACCESSIBILITY		2739	1679	396	2745	2109	1664	960	1056	4080	1870	216	270	49.46
RELIABILITY		747	3285	264	122	171	2184	4464	3432	2160	714	486	558	46.4675
RESPONSIVENESS		913	3066	1518	4392	1311	1196	1488	1452	1280	102	2619	180	48.7925
USER SATISFACTION		664	2482	2706	549	4560	4576	1152	1496	480	1394	270	342	51.6775
USEFULNESS		1660	2409	2970	549	2280	624	1632	924	2600	476	2241	432	46.9925
TYPE OF SERVICES		1743	1022	2838	2745	4959	1716	432	1980	720	136	621	1044	49.89
CONTENT		8300	6132	4290	2196	1596	1248	912	484	160	170	189	306	64.9575
SPECIAL SERVICES (SORTING/SAVING/ INDEXING)		498	73	396	1952	2451	2444	4464	1012	1320	2584	135	630	44.8975
SERVICE QUALITY		3320	219	1056	1281	228	2184	960	2508	880	3536	1323	396	44.7275
CUSTOMIZED SERVICES		4233	1387	198	2562	114	1456	1152	2464	1240	646	621	1836	44.7725
EXPOSURE TO INFORMATION		7719	7227	3696	1891	1368	884	912	660	880	136	378	108	64.6475
OPERATIONAL FEATURES (HOW TO OPERATE DL AND SEARCH INFO)		664	219	6072	3416	1653	624	672	132	200	1836	1701	1098	45.7175
Total		400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400	400

Source: Survey Response

The Garret values once multiplied to table 1 will result in table 3. The numbers so obtained after multiplication will be added column wise and will be divided by number of respondents that is 400 in this case. The value so obtained is presented in table 3 under column head sum. This sum is now arranged in descending order. The factors that have maximum sum associated to it is the most important factor as per students during their information search process when using digital library. The factor with minimum sum associated is the least important factor in the information search process.

Table 4 Factors ranked as per the priorities obtained

Factors	Priority
ACCESSIBILITY	5
RELIABILITY	8
RESPONSIVENESS	6
USER SATISFACTION	3
USEFULNESS	7
TYPE OF SERVICES	4
CONTENT	1
SPECIAL SERVICES (SORTING/SAVING/INDEXING)	10
SERVICE QUALITY	12
CUSTOMIZED SERVICES	11
EXPOSURE TO INFORMATION	2
OPERATIONAL FEATURES (HOW TO OPERATE DL AND SEARCH INFO)	9

Source: Survey Response

From table 4 it is evident that content is the most important factor while using digital library while, service quality is least important factor while using digital library.

CONCLUSION:

The following conclusions can be derived from the analysis presented above

1. The engineering college students require content in their academic affairs. Hence, they are in search of substantial information content. They have ranked it as major priority. Therefore, digital libraries of engineering colleges should host good amount of content that can address need of students.

2. Digital libraries expose students to tons of information. They have ranked it as second priority. This is beneficial for students. Engineering college students prepare for other jobs and services as well other than engineering. For this they require diverse information and this is easily addressed by digital library.

3. User satisfaction is ranked as third while type of services is ranked as fourth. Type of services helps student to prepare for their assignments and projects.

4. Responsiveness was ranked as 6^th priority.

5. Students of engineering college give least priority service quality offered by the digital library. This can be due to the advancement in infrastructure in every engineering college, which address to the efficient functionality of the digital library.

REFERENCES:

1. Candela, L., D. Castelli, P. Pagano,, C. Thanos, Y. Ioannidis, G. Koutrika, S. Ross, H. Schek, and H. Schuldt. 2007. Setting the Foundations of Digital Libraries: The DELOS Manifesto. D-Lib Magazine, 13(3/4). [cited 2014.1.14].

2. Fox, E. A., R. M. Akscyn, R. K. Furuta, and J. J. Leggett. 1995. “Digital Libraries.” Communications of the ACM, 38(4): 23-28.

3. Fuhr, N., P. Hansen, M. Mabe, A. Micsik, and I. Sølvberg. 2001. “Digital Libraries: A Generic Classification and Evaluation Scheme.” Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2163: 187-199.

4. Fuhr, N., G. Tsakonas, T. Aalberg, M. Agosti, P. Hansen, S. Kapidakis, C. Klas, L. Kovács, M. Landoni, A. Micsik, C. Papatheodorou, C. Peters, and I. Sølvberg. 2007. “Evaluation of Digital Libraries.” International Journal on Digital Libraries, 8(1): 21-38.

5. Hill, L.L., R. Dolin, J. Frew, R.B. Kemp, M. Larsgaard, D.R. Montello, M.-A. Rae, and J. Simpson. 1997. “User Evaluation: Summary of the Methodologies and Results for the Alexandria Digital Library, University of California at Santa Barbara.” Proceedings of 60th ASIST Annual Meeting. (pp. 225-243, 369). Medford, NJ: Information Today.

Received on 18.04.2017 Modified on 09.06.2017

Int. J. Ad. Social Sciences. 2017; 5(2):105-108.

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2679.2017.00009.3