Exploring the Usage and Developments of the Collection of the Ceylon Room at the Library in University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Abstract

Presently, being one of the largest universities in Sri Lanka in terms of student number, the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (USJ) is a leading higher education institution with diverse courses, research and inventions. The main library of USJ exceeds fifteen thousand members in its user community, including 862 permanent academic staff. The Ceylon Room (CR) Collection is considered one of the most valuable collections in the library of USJ. CR Collection consists of various printed materials significant to Sri Lankan literature. The first objective is to assist the user community in their academic endeavors and to observe the Ceylon Room usage and development needs. The other objective of this study was to find out whether the users are satisfied with the existing CR Collection. Data was gathered from the library usage records, structured interviews and through questionnaires distributed among students and academics who visited the Ceylon Room from May to August 2021. The purposive sampling method was applied, and the sample for this study was taken from three faculties out of ten faculties of the university which directly have access to the main library, i.e., Humanities and Social Sciences, Applied Sciences and Management Studies and Commerce. The available library statistics were used as primary data obtained from the records in the CR collection from 2015 to 2019. Results revealed that, most students and academic staff were satisfied with the CR Collection, and the satisfaction rates were 80% and 53%, respectively. The highest usage of the CR Collection by students is from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) (78%), and the least usage of the CR Collection is from the students of the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FAS) (1%). Most of the academic staff of FHSS (65%) have indicated that they used the CR Collection during 2015-2019. During that period, the least number of academic staff members that have used the Ceylon Room belonged to the FAS, which is 6%. Results showed that academic staff and students of FHSS using the existing CR Collection are 65%. Therefore, the library should give more attention to the faculties of the Applied Sciences and Management Studies and Commerce to make their students and academic staff aware of the availability and new additions of the CR Collection. Furthermore, the collection should be continuously re-evaluated to meet user requirements to support their academic activities.