Browsing by Author "Osoro Leah"

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    A Survey of Information Requirements of Agricultural Experts: The Case of Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya
    (Addis Ababa University, 2001-06) Osoro Leah; Jemaneh Getachew (PhD); Abdela Woinshet (W/ro)
    This study surveys the information requirements of agricultural experts in MoA, Kenya. Specifically, to assess the information needs; to find out the extent to which these needs are met; to establish from where the experts obtain information; to assess the information seeking behavior of agriculturists; to find out the problems encountered by the experts when seeking information and to offer suggestions towards effective information delivery to the agriculturists based on the survey results.Agriculture information plays a very important function in agricultural management. Regardless of this fact, the currently existing agricultural information systems within Ministry of Agriculture do not fully perform their vital role in agricultural management, as it is believed to. In particular, the Library Information Services (LIS) has failed to provide information to its users; the library is disseminating outdated information, relied on infrequently revised monographs at the expense of current sources of information (Kampuchea, 1998). The available information is ineffectively disseminated; therefore, there is a need to improve linkage between agricultural information and agricultural management, in view of the fact that the current paradigm is to set up agricultural information systems that tie the users to the information resources.A survey, usmg a semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather data. Seventy-six agricultural experts were sampled using stratified and purpose sampling techniques. The data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics The study revealed that the experts' information needs were greatly influenced by the nature of the work they do, and the information needs in tum influences their information seeking habits. The agricultural experts have placed high importance on teclmical, market, and socioeconomic information. They rely on informal sources of information such as colleagues. They do not rely on library collections to satisfy their information needs. It was noted that card catalogue as an information retrieval tool is still dominant in the MoA libraries. Limiting factors to effective use of agricultural information by the experts was mainly due to the fact that the information sources are scattered at different locations. To address the problem of information sources scattered at different places within MoA and outside sources, a Ready Reference database system for MoA was proposed, designed and a prototype developed. The objective of the proposed database system is to direct users to sources of information that satisfy their information needs. It was also recommended that: Selective dissemination of information should be a major component of agricultural information services, teaching of information seeking skills, formulation of an agricultural information policy, management support, modernization of the MoA information services, future studies to consider applying other data-gathering techniques like interviewing, observing the businesses of MoA in operation and examining documents in particular those used to record or display information among others.