An Empirical Study about Students' Attitudes over the Loss and Mutilation of Research Materials in University Library - with an Emphasis on Research Analyses of 1989 and 1994 -

대학 도서관 자료의 분실과 훼손에 대한 이용자들의 태도에 관한 경험적 연구 -1989년과 1994년의 조사분석을 중심으로 -

  • Kang Mia Hye (Dept. of Lib. & Info. Science, Duksung Women's University)
  • 강미혜 (덕성여자대학교 도서관학과)
  • Published : 1995.06.01

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the attitudes of students, who are used to study at the Library of Duksung Women's University, concerning about the loss and mutilation of books, articles and other research materials m a university library, and to take measures for preventing the library materials from being lost and mutilated. This study made the surveys of student's recognition about the immoral behaviors like larcenous and mutilating acts, the causes of such destructive works and effective preventive measures to keep library materials in good condition, including student's opinion about library services. The investigations were conducted in two times with the same questionnaire on randomly selected 480 students and 540 students of 1989 and 1994 respectively. The sample size is estimated to reach each $10\%$ of the total number of students of 1989 and 1994 in Duksung Women's University. And then, the students were divided into two groups. The one is a group that has had experiences stealing and mutilating the materials from the Library of the University. The other is another group which has done none of them. Thereafter the responses of the two groups are analyzed to compare the differences of the students' behaviors between 1989 and 1994, and thereby finding out important factors inviting the loss and mutilation and accordingly improving effective checks to deter the students from stealing and mutilating the library materials. Some of the research findings suggested in this paper are pointed out as follows: 1) The students who has experienced neither stealing nor mutilating the library materials visited the library more frequently and are more serious about such destructive behavior as stealing and mutilating. 2) The attitudes of the students about services and equipments supplied by the library are slightly different among the students who experienced such immoral activities or not. For example, the experienced students had more preference about an application of self-help duplicating machine being able to use card. 3) To prevent the students from stealing and mutilating the library materials, the non-experienced students demanded an education for them to duly recognize the public interest of the library and also suggested to keep more duplicate materials ready in the library, meanwhile, the experienced students indicated strongly such proposals as strict regulations against stealing and mutilating behaviors, having a correct understanding of costing a lot of time and money to restore the damaged materials to their original state and keeping many duplicates ready in the library. 4) It appears to be that there were different between the experienced and non- experienced students concerning causes invited stealing and mutilated behaviors. 5) Over all, the number of the non-experienced students is more increased in 1994 than that of 1989.

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