Distance education research students and their library use

Peter Macauley

Abstract
This paper reports on the results of research on the information needs of off-campus higher degree by research students from Deakin University. The study involved surveying the total Australian-domiciled population of Deakin University off-campus PhD, EdD and Masters by research students. Its main findings were: many students received little guidenace from their supervisors on how to carry out a research project; in spite of this, students made extensive use of libraries and visited libraries other than their own for convenience, for access to material not held by the home library and to browse; their stated usage of public libraries was much lower than that found in previous surveys; while students sometimes claimed that they needed certain services (eg networked electronic databases), they often did not use them when the databases were available; consequent on this, research students need a shift in attitude and willingness to use electronic services if they are to benefit fully from the vastly improved access to resources offered by the Internet.