LIBRARY AND INFORMATION NEEDS OF DIFFERENTLY-ABLED STUDENTS IN KERALA: A STUDY

The study was conducted to investigate the information needs of differently-abled students in the school libraries of Kerala. The study was done among students belonging to the category of visually challenged (VC), hearing and speech impaired (HI), and physically challenged (PC) from special schools and schools under Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage(IEDSS). The study was based on a questionnaire survey, conducted in the three districts of Kerala state ie; Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulum & Kozhikode. The analyses revealed that the information needs of differently-abled students have become complex and problematic due to the insufficiency of adequate information sources and services and there are quite a number of challenges faced by these students in accessing information from the libraries. The overall result of the study was that, though the library services provided in the school are useful for their studies, the respondents cannot make use of them because of barriers. The study comes out with some practical suggestions to improve the library services for differently-abled students