Information Gathering Practices for Research among Circuit and Non-Circuit Branch Faculty Members of Engineering Educational Institutions Sadagoban Kalidass*, Dr. Tamizhchelvan M.** *Chief Librarian, Nandha Engineering College, Erode, TamilNadu, India **Deputy Librarian, Gandhigram Rural Institute, Deemed University, Dindigul, TamilNadu, India Online published on 5 April, 2016. Abstract This paper investigate information gathering practices for research among circuit and non-circuit branch faculty members of engineering educational institutions at Erode district in Tamil Nadu, India. Data thus collected and were analysed based on dependency level on information sources for research, limitations faced while gathering information at library and internet among circuit and non-circuit branch faculty members. Accordingly, 300 questionnaires were distributed, 218 responded and the respondents' rate is 72.6%. The data, thus collected based on the opinion of circuit and non circuit branch faculty members in the Likert's scale and were analysed using SPSS software further. Chi-square has been administered to identify the significance at α = 0.05 level. The study has also adopted with reliability test, rotated component matrices, correlation techniques and matrix of Change. The study has emphasis that both the faculty members are highly dependent on “Internet sources” (m 4.164 & 3.917) and “Current reading materials (journal/magazines)” (m 3.746 & 3.667) for research. ‘Desirable sources are not available' (m 2.892 & 2.408) and ‘take more time for searching' (m 3.022 & 2.584) are the major limitations in the library and ‘Information is scattered in too many sources (information explosion)' (m 2.355 & 2.216) and ‘no immediate deletion of inapplicable/non-available website addresses' (m 2.892 & 2.768) are the major limitations in the internet while accessing information sources. Some of recommendations are given at the end of study for the foot forth of further research. Top Keywords Faculty members, Information seeking behaviour, Reliability test, Matrix of Change, User study. Top |