Library use and information-seeking behavior of veterinary medical students

Veterinary medical students at Iowa State University were assessed for general use of the veterinary library and for their information-seeking behavior. The library was most frequently used for studying and for making photocopies of materials. The typical respondent relied on course textbooks and handouts for current information on unfamiliar topics, instead of using indexes or abstracts for guidance to recent literature. Light use of library information resources raises the concern that students are developing an inadequate base of retrieval skills for finding information on new procedures, diseases and drugs. No differences were found between students with and without formal bibliographic instruction in their approaches to seeking information or in library use.