Perceptions of Internet use as academic library services' delivery medium for Web-based courses

This study was conducted in order to measure Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty perceptions about using the Internet as academic library services' delivery medium for their students taking Web-based-courses. Six research questions were used to examine and define the role of the Internet as a delivery medium for these services to Web students.; The population of the study was 206 LIS faculty members in 35 accredited U.S.-LIS schools who taught Web-based courses in both Fall Semester 2000 and Spring Semester 2001. The data was collected from the population using an e-mail survey. In order to analyze the data, a descriptive statistics measure and a One Sample T-Test were used with Microsoft Excel Software and SPSS 10.0 Software.; The findings showed that the LIS faculty who taught Web-based courses believed that their academic libraries' Internet systems did offer adequate academic library services for Web-based students. The component “Searching Library Catalogs Service” was found to be the most available and most useful academic library service via the Internet. Further, LIS Faculty viewed as positive the Internet's effect as a delivery tool for academic library services to Web-based students, as well as its accessibility. In terms of the quality of academic library services, the components “Internet-based Document Delivery,” “Interlibrary Loan Services,” and “Reference Assistance Services” were regarded as adequate. On the whole, the LIS faculty acknowledged the ease of following academic library instructions over the Internet; they also believe that they themselves have a responsibility for introducing these services to their students. Internet-based academic library services have a significant impact on the educational performance of students taking Web-based courses. A majority of the LIS Web-teaching faculty gave assignments to their students that required the use of library services via the Internet. One of the most frequently assigned tasks using Internet-based library services was “Research papers.”...