Use of online public access catalogues and overseas students

The objectives of the the study were to investigate the usage of the online public access catalogues (OPACs) by overseas students to discover whether they need a special session to use OPACs, and to find out whether using the OPAC helps to improve their studies. A questionnaire survey was carried out to discuss the use of online public access catalogues by overseas students in Loughborough University. The results of the survey indicated that there were two types of overseas students: first, those who had used OPACs, and second, those who had not used OPACs before coming to Britain. Some of the overseas students had attended the training session on how to use the OPACs run by the library staff during their presessional course. The others learned to use the OPACs either through friends or by themselves. The analysis and discussion of the survey related to postgraduate and research students only because of the poor response rate by undergraduate students during the Pilot Survey. Recommendations to improve library services to cater for the needs of overseas students are included with the conclusion.