Clientele recognition of library terms and concepts used by librarians: A case of an academic library in the Philippines

Using a 30-item multiple choice type test, this investigation dwelt on the ability of college students to recognize terms and concepts used by librarians. A total of 447 respondents representing the fields of education, nutrition, food technology, tourism and hotel and restaurant management took part in this investigation. Data were gathered through robotfotos and an inventory of commonly used library jargons, duly identified and validated by academic librarians in one of the biggest multi-disciplinary universities in the Philippines. Data were treated indepth through percentage, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), t-test, and Spearman’s rank correlation. Interestingly, results of this study showed that clientele’s ability to recognize library terms and concepts posted the highest and lowest ratings of 84% and 33%, respectively. Further, among the respondents’ profiles, gender and type of catalog used (OPAC vs. card catalog) were found to have significant relationship with their ability to recognize library terms and concepts. Finally, a moderate positive correlation (rho= 0.58) exists between the clientele’s recognition ability and the librarian’s ranking of frequently asked and used terms by the former.