Search

This article aims to identify the factors prevalent among health science librarians toward vaccine hesitancy. With the development of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, numerous efforts are being taken to vaccinate people to control the spread of coronavirus. Recent research has shown a high level of vaccine hesitancy among various groups in various fields but no study has been conducted to explore the factors responsible for vaccine hesitancy among library professionals. A cross-sectional online survey of Indian health science librarians was conducted. Data was collected through an online questionnaire designed on Google Forms and analyzed using MS-Excel. Descriptive statistics were used in the study. The majority of respondents (77%) showed a high level of vaccine hesitancy due to issues of safety, negative information, and confusion over vaccines. Measures to increase vaccination uptake and authentic sources with respect to COVID-19 vaccines have been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As of October 1, 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) reports that COVID-19 has spread in 216 countries or territories or areas which results into throwing billions of lives under lockdown as healthcare services struggle to cope. Therefore, timely access to healthcare information during COVID-19 crisis is mandatory to restrain its spread. Objectives: To comprehend the information needs and seeking behaviour of general public during COVID-19 outbreak in India. Methods: A national survey through an online questionnaire was conducted in India and 1310 respondents participated in the study through snowball sampling technique. Results: The most decisive information needs of majority of respondents were COVID-19 signs and symptoms, causes and treatments of illness, prevention and control of COVID-19. Conspicuously, news websites, dedicated websites of coronavirus and medical staff were the most preferred and trustworthy sources of information related to COVID-19. Furthermore, credibility or authenticity of information was identified as the major problem in seeking COVID-19 information. Conclusion: The study's findings provide insight into the spectrum of health information seeking among general public in India during COVID-19 outbreak. This study may be useful to social welfare and government health departments, hospitals, and health-information communicators engaged in public safety and well-being in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study is to examine the librarians' attitude towards knowledge sharing including its concept, potential benefits, communication channels, and influencing factors that may motivate or hinder knowledge sharing practices in academic libraries in India. A questionnaire was used for data collection, 91 LIS professionals from Indian academic libraries were surveyed. In addition, 10 in-depth interviews were conducted. The findings of the study show that understanding of knowledge sharing concepts among librarians is varied though most of them perceived knowledge sharing as "dissemination or exchange of knowledge (explicit and tacit) from one individual to another individual or group of people". Moreover, librarians have a positive attitude towards knowledge sharing and believe that knowledge sharing improves the learning process and individual competencies as well as enhance the efficiency of library operations and services. Furthermore, email was found as the most preferred communication channel because of its accessibility, convenience, and personal warmness. Conspicuously, public recognition, rewards, knowledge self-efficacy and develop relations with colleagues were identified as key motivators and on the contrary, lack of trust, personal animosity, technological support and nepotism were found to be the major barriers for knowledge sharing practices. The findings of this study may be useful to the university authorities in India in designing and implementing an all-inclusive knowledge sharing strategy for LIS professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research paper is to investigate the knowledge management strategies adopted by the libraries of central universities in India. Review of literature, reveals that codification and personalisation have been considered knowledge management strategies for sharing explicit and tacit knowledge within the library system. To determine the most used knowledge management strategies in libraries, 14 tools (seven each for codification and personalisation) were recognised from the literature review and taken for examination. A total of 116 library and information science professionals of 23 central universities spread across India were surveyed through a web-based questionnaire to explore the knowledge management strategies followed and data analyses were conducted by using SPSS version 22.0. The findings of the research show that both codification and personalisation have been used in libraries, though the balance of codification and personalisation was not in 80-20 ratio. Between codification and personalisation, codification was found to be the most useful strategy with collective mean difference, i.e., 0.312. This study has practical implications for those who are not fully aware of the prominence of knowledge management and how knowledge management strategies can be used to gain a competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]