Computers have become a part and parcel of our everyday life. The consumption of computer has entrenched into each and every facet of human life and no doubt it has made us much more efficient and productive. The purpose of this study is to examine the occupancy rate of computers in the library of University of Wollongong at random time intervals. The observations has been recorded randomly from library by counting the number of computer sets in use at different time intervals throughout the week. The findings of the report states that most of the computers available in the library are in use when observed during the course of week. Findings of the study reveal high usage of computers in the library’s ground floor measured by the counting occupied at random time intervals.
The Role of Digital Technologies in Library: An Experimental Case Study of University of Wollongong Library’s Ground Floor Section
Abstract
Computers have become a part and parcel of our everyday life. The consumption of computer has entrenched into each and every facet of human life and no doubt it has made us much more efficient and productive. The purpose of this study is to examine the occupancy rate of computers in the library of University of Wollongong at random time intervals. The observations has been recorded randomly from library by counting the number of computer sets in use at different time intervals throughout the week. The findings of the report states that most of the computers available in the library are in use when observed during the course of week. Findings of the study reveal high usage of computers in the library’s ground floor measured by the counting occupied at random time intervals.
Introduction
It is well established fact that we are living in an information age characterized by information technology. Information age also referred as digital or computer age has brought a lot of revolutionary changes in an ordinary business of life. The information communication processes has become much faster and efficient causing human productivity to increase by manifold. Likewise the impact of such revolution has also brought modification the way of learning and teaching activities. Competition of being number one has led institutions to incorporate the provision of greater on campus learning facilities among which library is a most vital place for acquisition of knowledge and learning. The traditional method of acquiring knowledge comprised of book reading debate and discussions with the fellow student that generate new ideas. But with the advent of computers there is an information bomb out there on the internet in the form of tons of eBooks, journals, and research papers on single topic that sometimes it becomes too much hectic to reach out for the relevant stuff. Henceforth this tech revolution has broadened much opportunities for academia terms of greater available resources. The main focus of this study also constitutes the inquiry of computer usage in the library of University of Wollongong’s ground floor section to check whether this learning tool referred as computer plays a significant role for students and faculty for their academic activities.
Literature Review
It is widely believed that Information Technology plays a vital role of in the business of libraries. The traditional role computers in academic libraries is to give access the catalogues and collections but in recent years due to the rapid technological advancements there is a modifications due increased competition that these services in the library support all facets of studying. (Thompson, 2012)
As the traditional role of libraries has evolved over a period of time, academic libraries throughout the globe are doing serious endeavours to ensure the demands of a digital age are met in provision of quality library services. In order to do so, technology has been utilized to a much greater extent transforming the physical resources to the digital form. (Tamizhchelvan, 2014,)
Often it is generally believed that libraries are books centered and old fashioned places but the objective is to enable modernization of the libraries by allowing social interactions as well as learning and study styles. This approach by Scott Bennett's model of library design, which postulates a move from a "book-centered" to a tech enabled "learning centered" model of library space(Khoo, Rozaklis, Hall, & Kusunoki, 2016)
Research Objective
The chief purpose of the study is to find out the usage of computers in the learning activities of students on ground floor of the UoW library. The number of computer engaged observed at 20 different time interval to reach a meaningful conclusion. Moreover the research will give insight about the significance of computers or IT in the field of library. The high rate of occupied computers will support our premise that students give more importance to computer use in the library for their learning activities. Following are the hypothesis postulated that tells us the rate of occupancy of computers in the library
Hypothesis I: 90% of the computers available at university of Wollongong’s library (ground floor) are occupied most of the time.
Hypothesis II: 75% of the computers available at university of Wollongong’s library (ground floor) are occupied most of the time.
Research Methodology
This is a primary level research conducted by collecting raw observations of the counts of the computer sets occupied/in usage out of the total available computers. The 20 observation set has been obtained from the library’s ground floor at different time intervals throughout the course of a week from Monday till Friday. The data set collected thus collected go through the process of organization in the form of a table. The maximum no. of computers available at library’s ground floor are 78 and the counts of occupied computers has been recorded with a minimum value of 31 computers occupied and maximum of 73. Afterwards, the hypothesis formulated earlier in the research will be statistically tested in R studio software. One sample t test has been conducted to check the validity of the hypothesis. The t test analysis tells us whether the means of the sample differs from the means of hypothesized value of the population mean. Descriptive statistics analysis also provided in the report in the quantitative analysis section.
Significance of the Problem
The study provides several implications as we have seen the results have statistically proved the high usage of computers in library so keeping in view of the above discussion, it is very pertinent for the university administration to keep adopting the modern technologies in line with the latest technological advancements so that student satisfaction about their learning experience can be ensured. Furthermore, by looking at such high usage of computers more computers should be made available to avoid any waiting time in the peak hours.
Expected Outcomes
The expected outcomes of the study may or may not be according to the hypothesized assumptions but the generally looking at the overall trend it can be said that computers usage in libraries has increased and the occupancy of computers will show a high percentage.
Quantitative Analysis
The 20 observation set has been obtained from the library’s ground floor at different time intervals throughout the course of a week from Monday till Friday. The data set collected thus collected go through the process of organization in the form of a table. The maximum no. of computers available at library’s ground floor are 78 and the counts of occupied computers has been recorded with a minimum value of 31 computers occupied and maximum of 73.
Table 1: Observations
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Hypothesis Formulation:
In this section of the report hypothesis test will be conducted to check the occupancy rate of the computers at university of Wollongong’s library by counting the number of occupied computers at different time intervals throughout the course of a week. Following are the hypothesis to be tested.
Hypothesis I
90% of the computers available at university of Wollongong’s library (ground floor) are occupied most of the time. The null hypothesis states that mean of the population is equal to the hypothesised value i.e. 70.2 (90 % of the available computers)
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Hypothesis II
75% of the computers available at university of Wollongong’s library (ground floor) are occupied most of the time. The null hypothesis population is equal to the hypothesised value i.e. 58.5 (75% of the available computers)
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Results & Analysis
This study employs one sample t test for the statistical analysis of the results. All the statistical tests have been carried out in the R Studio. First of all descriptive statistics analysis shown in the table below shows 20 observations of the counts of occupied computers has been recorded with a minimum value of 31 computers occupied and maximum of 73. Moreover mean of the sample and sample standard deviation tells us about the central tendency of the counted number of occupied computers.
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- Quote paper
- Anonymous,, 2018, The Role of Digital Technologies in Library, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/589431
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