Are Indian Libraries VIP-Friendly? Information Use and Information Seeking Behaviour of Visually Impaired People in Delhi Libraries

The purpose of this paper is to study the various library services and information sources provided to the visually impaired people in different Braille Libraries and Talking Book Libraries in Delhi and also explore the information needs and information seeking behavior of this special group of people. For this study, literature survey and review of literature related to the study were made to have a better understanding of the problem and examine the findings of earlier relevant studies. Semi-structured interview was used as a data collection tool to collect the relevant data from the subjects under study. An interview was also conducted with the librarians and professional staffs to study the various information sources available in the libraries. Various library and information services are being provided in the libraries under study. The visually impaired people depend on information sources such as Braille, Audio Books in the form of Cassettes, DAISY Books which are also known as Digital Talking Book and electronic texts. These are important sources of information but their use differ from person to person according to the availability and affordability. Much needs to be done to improve user satisfaction of this special group of people and fulfill their information needs