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The study was conducted to investigate the information seeking behavior of hearing impaired students in school libraries. The study was based on a questionnaire survey and data was collected from students from Government Vocational Higher Secondary School (VHSS) for Deaf, Thiruvananthapuram. The analyses revealed that the information needs of hearing impaired students have become complex and problematic due to the insufficiency of adequate information sources and services and there are quite a number of challenges faced by the hearing impaired students in accessing information from the libraries. It has been found that, even though assistive technologies are playing a vital role in the educational aspects of differently-abled students, it is not playing a role in the progress in library services for differently-abled. Most of the students are not aware of the assistive technologies available to assist them in accessing information. The overall result of the study was that, though the library services provided in the school are useful for their studies, the respondents cannot make use of them because of barriers. The study comes out with some practical suggestions to improve the library facilities for hearing impaired students with the help of assistive technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to investigate the awareness and usage of internet resources among visually challenged students in Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala. Survey method and questionnaire tool were used to collect data from 74 visually challenged students, who are studying in various schools of Thiruvananthapuram. Analyses revealed that 59.46 % students are computer literates and are aware of online resources. However, internet usage is very less among the computer literates due to the lack of proper training. Among the respondents, a good number of students are aware of assistive technologies, even though many of them are not using them. The mostly used assistive technology is screen reader. It is found that students are depending on internet resources mainly for their academic purpose. Responses shows that lack of proper training creates a big barrier in using internet and only 25.67 % are using it very confidently. The results of the study would be helpful in getting a fairly good idea of the student's awareness level of internet resources and assistive technologies. The outcome of the study helps the school authorities, librarians and the government to provide adequate services and training to visually challenged students to access information without any barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]