The utilization of library services by students in a medical college

Objectives: To find out the extent of use and to identify the utilization of facilities other than books in the library, to discover the problems which are faced by the students and to suggest ways to improve the resources in the library. Methods: All the students studying for the 5 ^th semester in the Department of Pharmacology were administered a pre-tested, structured questionnaire and the responses were obtained. Results: This study did not show any statistically significant gender difference, either in the mean number of visits per week [p = 0.968] or in the number of hours spent per visit [p = 0.77] As majority of the students stayed in hostels, restrictions in the hostel timings, particularly among the female students could have been a deterrent for studying late in the library. The observation that a large number of students either carried their own books to the library or supplemented the study with their own books and the indication by about 53% of the respondents that they did not always get the current editions of the books, suggests that there is a need to increase the availability of the commonly read text books. Conclusion: Though most of the students in this semester did utilize the library services, most of them seemed to be using the standard text books only, without making use of the other available facilities like medical journals and electronic media databases. There is also a need to improve the stock of commonly read books and to pay some more attention to the conveniences and the comforts in the library.