Information needs of Medicine postgraduate students: Identifying their specific needs through a literature review and a user survey

Abstract

This article aims to determine the information needs of medical postgraduate students, a topic surprisingly underrepresented in existing literature. On the 1984 survey in Louisiana State University established initial benchmarks regarding physicians' information need, motivations, and resources which confirmed the internet's prominence as a key information source for physicians. However, contrasting evidence from a University of Maryland (1996-1997) study indicated a low utilization of libraries,  Based on the findings of this study, it is evident that the postgraduate student Physicians questioned in a survey at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tripoli that they visit the medical library to seek information but the challenges that they faced included lack of source for information, internet and databases. The study can be concluded that, the overwhelming majority of postgraduate student physicians appear to use their internet, while the Minority of them show to use the library as a source of information.