Compared to local students,
even in Malaysia the culture to go to
the library is less compared to the other
country that they are very love to come
and also join every activities in the library. Even there have programs in the
University library, they didn’t love to go
to the library. But not all of the local
students lazy to go to the library when
has the program, it just only certain of
them. This is because Malaysian people
didn’t aware about the important of the
library to the country and also for their
self even it is not now, maybe one day
they will feel that all of the library very
important to them.
most of the student including foreign
students or local students would like to
ask librarian to help them especially for
the graduate students which is students
that were aborting the Master or PhD.
Even it is only a students,
librarian always have to remember that
they are the customer in that library.
The first perception that I want to share
is about the services in the University
library that local student and also foreign
students which is the reference desk.
For the local students, they thought that
library just only to do an assignment and
they are rather just sitting in their home
compared to go to the library unless they
are forced to go. Compared to foreign
student in the University, they loved to
ask librarian and reference desk to get
information or materials that they want
because they feel like very honoured to
ask them.
The reasons why there have lots
of different between the local student
and also foreign students because they
will act like what they feel to the library
in their country. For example, people in
Korea
especially for the housewives will come
to their National Library to do more
activities such are clean the library, do the
puppet show, and also the story telling
and many more compared to Malaysian people which they will come to the
National library if they have important
information that they need immediately. A good indication is that the library
staffs are considered quite helpful and
able to instil confidence in library users.
This would encourage users and increase
library staff morale (Kaur Kiran, 2010).
Second perception that foreign
students towards Malaysia library is about
the outreach programs which are the one
of the most important services that have
to be provided in the library and also
have lots of things that the library will do
to attract user to come to the library. For
example, foreign students will assume
that in the Malaysia University will hold
lots of programs to promote the library.
They also think that University library
there have lots of programs that will be
done and definitely they will join it but
in Malaysia usually there just only one to
two programs will be held in one month.
Thirdly, the services of collections’ materials in the library that has
been provided to the user or customer.
The local students assume that the
collection only can be used when they
come to the library so they can use
it and also they can borrow it. Unfortunately, they usually didn’t realize
that they also can borrow it by using
online based or they also can reserve
the books that they want to borrow it
from library. For example, The University of Malaya library is now providing
electronic services to their client via
the library web site and the ‘‘interaktif
portal’’ compared to foreign students
are aware about the online services that
have been provided by the library. This
is because in their country they usually
use this library services when they are
need anything regarding their assignment and also information that they
need.
Local Students VS International Student Perception Towards Malaysian Library
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