St. Paul University Surigao

St.
Paul University Surigao

St. Paul University System
Surigao City, Philippines
Information Needs Assessment of Gigaquit, Surigao Del Norte: Towards a Proposed Library
Collection Development Plan 1
CHAPTER 1
THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Gigaquitnon is the term used to describe the people who live in the Municipality of
Gigaquit, Surigao del Norte. It is said that Gigaquit got its name from two native words
“Gigad” which means shore and “Gakit” meaning a bamboo raft. This raft was used by early
settlers as transportation from the hinterland to the shore. From what was handed down by
word of mouth during the years, the two words were joined and later became “Gigaquit” (Wow
Surigao Philippines, 2018).
Like other place, development is a must to cope with the changes in the needs of the
people. There are many developments that are soon to be built and implemented in the town
and one of these is the Gigaquit Eco-Tourism Industry, Flood Control, Livelihood Programs
and many others. These developments demand many things to prepare and these do not apply
only to a certain group or place in the community but to the every aspect of the Gigaquitnon’s
way of living. With these aforementioned developments, more information is to be acquired to
make everyone aware of what to do and when is the high time to do it.
Information plays an important role in almost every human activity. It values the
development process of the person’s learning and growth and eventually to the country as a
whole. As stated by RA 7743, the law recognizes the vital role of information in the
St. Paul University Surigao
development of the nation. It helps to promote the moral and intellectual well-being of the
people, at the same time to elevate literacy level of the nation.
A public library is a library that serves the community. It is funded by the government or
the Local Government Unit (LGU) to serve the public’s interest in terms of their information
needs. According to Public Library Manifesto (1994), a public library has been considered as a
local gateway to knowledge that provides a basic condition for lifelong learning. It supports
also independent decision-making and gratifies cultural development of the individual as well
as the social groups.
Public libraries support access to information services in the community. Indeed, many
communities, especially in rural areas, rely on free information services in their libraries since
access to information portals is quite expensive for a single subscriber (Mugwisi, Jiyane &
Fombad, 2016). With the demand of information in today’s daily activities such as in the job,
schools and even in the household chores like cooking, fishing, rearing for agricultural crops
and knowing weather forecast, brings information services into greater blockbuster needs in the
community.
In order to make a library service more responsive to the needs of its clienteles, a library
must be more sensitive and relatively innovative in rearing people’s requirements and
demands. Hence, the need to collect client’s feedback and knowing one’s strengths and
weaknesses is an important activity that a librarian should do. It is mentioned by Henry (2001)
that public libraries should provide services and collection that are based on local needs, which
should be assessed also regularly.
The information needs group their responsibility to make their targets to be done
successfully. This working group includes household workers and workers in the middle to
lower income earners. In one of the studies conducted in America by the Pew Research
Center’s Library Services Survey (2013), 6224 Americans ages 16 and older, adults who live
in lower-income households, and adults with lower levels of educational attainment are more
likely to say that public library services very important. Most of the users of the information
are those who are working.
Gigaquit Municipal Library was established in the year 2012 by the Local Government
Unit of the Gigaquit as a joint project of the Non-Government Organization (NGO) called
Lumad Gigaguitnon Worldwide, Inc. It has been one of the great projects of this NGO fronting
their legacy in the community. The said library is located adjacent to the Municipal building of
the Gigaquit. The facility could only cater 30 persons all at once. Its collections are only
limited to some subjects and most of them are fiction, specifically for children.
The researchers observed that the use of Gigaquit Municipal Library is not maximized.
The library has a good facility and located strategically at the center of the town, however, it
has only limited visits by the localities. One of the reasons is that the library has no collection
that could address the information needs of the town people as mentioned by the library staff.
The town mayor is aware of this and even aware of the benefits that the community library
could help to the town folks. However, as to what to acquire and where to start, especially they
don’t have a librarian; this goal might be a difficult task for them to meet. The town mayor
wanted to build a library collection based on the information needs of the locals.
The researchers wanted to assess the community of Gigaquit in determining their
information needs. It is in this purpose that the researchers wanted to help the community in
building their library collection anchored on the needs of the community. Along with this, the
researchers also wanted to know the trends of information needs and the present depth of
library collection available in the Gigaquit Municipal Library.
Theoretical Framework of the Study
This study is anchored on the R.A. 7160 (1991), An Act Providing for a Local Government
Code of 1991. The law deals about delivering the basic services to the community by the
government and the local government unit (LGU) that the territorial and political subdivisions
of the state shall enjoy service and meaningful local autonomy to enable them to attain their
fullest development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in the
attainment of rational goals. The same Republic Act longs to provide basic services and
facilities maintenance of public library and take custody on its account. The LGU is
responsible to give those basic needs of the community. Under of the law, the library
municipality should develop and have maintained the support for the information needs of the
community. In this relation, the Gigaquit Municipal Library’s purpose is to provide access to
knowledge, dissemination of information and promote lifelong learning to the community. The
library needs to take actions to address the information needs of the community.
The researchers also used the Information Needs Assessment Model of Dhingra and
Misra (2004) that emphasizes assessing the information needs of the rural communities. It
helps to categorize the different types of information needs of the locals. To know the
information needs of the community is a very important goal that a librarian must comply since
the result would bring to a decision of what kind of materials are to be acquired by the library.
It will also serve as guide to the librarians to develop the collections of the library.
The study will determine first the information needs of the locale in terms of the basic
needs, access to justice, classified and entertainment, government information, daily
information, announcements, self-employment, environmental awareness and area profile. This
information is thought to be the foundation of the Gigaquit Municipal Library Collection.

INFORMATION NEEDS R.A. 7160

ASSESSMENT MODEL FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT
RURAL COMMUNITIES CODE, 1991
“Identifies the information needs of the “Take custody of the local
rural communities” library”
Dhingra and Misra, 2004
Collection Evaluation Analysis
INFORMATION NEEDS
OF RURAL AVAILABLE
COMMUNITIES MATERIALS IN
THE GIGAQUIT
 Basic Needs; MUNICIPAL
 Access to Justice; LIBRARY TO
 Classified & Entertainment; ADDRESS THE
 Government Information; INFORMATION
NEEDS OF THE
 Daily Information; COMMUNITY
 Announcements;
 Self-employment;
 Environmental Awareness,
 Area Profile
IDENTIFIED STRENGTHS AND

WEAKNESSES IN THE COLLECTION OF
THE GIGAQUIT MUNICIPAL LIBRARY
PROPOSED
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Figure 1.Schematic Diagram of the Study

Information about basic needs is considered important since it provides survival level of
resources to every individual. It includes agriculture, livelihood, emergency services,
transportation, water, healthcare, education, and other things that adequately provide for
individual and to their families. According to Bennett (2006), Abraham Maslow represents the
hierarchy of needs of human as a pyramid with the most fundamental needs at the bottom. The
bottom of the pyramid is the physiological needs which are the physical requirements for
human survival. These needs are air, water, food, etc. that should met first of every individual.
In view of this, the library should contain basic needs of information from different learning
resource materials that can help the community to meet their basic needs.
Access to justice is also considered an information need because every individual has a
privilege to know that they have equal rights in the rule of law. Access to justice is being able
to know the rights of every people to the context of the court system of their country. It
includes court case information and remedies for grievances. As stated by Roseveare (2013),
law ensures not only in the books and courtrooms but also available to the ordinary people and
actively use the law to their needs. Hence, the library should provide the information about the
court system of the country and the rights of every individual to the court. Therefore, the
library will help the community to be aware to their rights and the law of the
country/municipality.
Furthermore, classifieds and entertainment is also considered as information needs of the
rural community. Entertainment brings happiness which is a fundamental medicine that helps
to aids health and well-being of the people in times of depression and anxieties. On the other
hand, classifieds advertise business enterprises and job opportunities to individuals. According
to Folden (2013), when life gets tough people want to forget their problems for a moment.
People tend to escape from reality for a short period of time and forget all the problems,
through movies, magazines, recreational activities, music, sport events and other things that
allow people to become happier just for a short period of time. Therefore, the library should
also have leisure books or library activities that the community can relieve from their anxiety
and depression.
Moreover, government information is also considered as information needs of the locals
since every community has a government. Government information is any information that
produced, compiled, created and printed by the local government and law/order made by the
government/municipality. According to Meijer and Thaens (2009), it helps the community to
inform in different issues such as traffic information, food safety, school quality, and etc.
Therefore, government information helps the community to inform in a variety of issues
regarding to the government. And also, government information is also considered to be as
primary sources that could help people who are conducting research studies. Hence, the library
as a source of information, it is important that it has its local information resources that could
help the community to be aware of what happening to their municipality/government.
Furthermore, daily information is also considered important since everyday people
demands different information in their day-to-day lives. Information such as weather updates,
lottery results, news reports, and other information that the people need to their everyday life.
This information can retrieve by the local through newspapers, radio, television, internet and
other devices that can supplement the daily information needs of the community. According to
Church, Cherubini and Oliver (2014), people encounter different information needs into their
daily lives such as knowing the latest football results, watching news, weather updates,
economic prices and other needs that the society encounters every day. Therefore, daily
information is essential part of daily living to the individual. It provides awareness to the
community on what happening to their environment. Hence, the library must contain
information that can help the community to solve their daily information needs.
On the other hand, an announcement is also considered as information need of the rural
community. It gives information about something that has happened or that will happen.
Important information awareness to the community will be posted through announcements
such as barangay health program, barangay assembly, training programs, new livelihood
program or livelihood update and other information that the local government needs to
announce to the community. As mentioned by Suggett (2018), public service announcement is

to raise awareness to the current issues and to change the public opinion of individual.
Announcement can be obtained through various advertisements like television, radio, through
online, flyers and posters. It helps the community to be educated in the important issues of
society. Announcement is different from daily information because this shall not need to be
released daily. Therefore, the library must have a bulletin in order to help in disseminating of
information of the local government and also to update the community to its new services and
books of the library.
Moreover, self-employment is also included since a lot of people in rural communities
engaging to the self-employment business. Self-employment is a situation where an individual
works for himself instead in working for an employer that pays a salary or wages. As stated by
Dawson, Henley and Latreille (2009), many individuals chose to be self-employed due to
unable to find appropriate salary to their job. For this reason, people engage in small
enterprises that provides important services in rural communities such as general stores, hair
salon, electrician enterprises and etc. Hence, the library should obtain information that helps
the self-employed to have a better understanding of their business and guide them in managing
their business.
Furthermore, environmental awareness is also considered as information needs of the
rural communities since it helps people to understand the consequences of human activities to
the environment and vice versa. As mentioned by Kumar (2013), environmental education and
awareness encourage people to participate in conservation, protection and management of the
environment. For this reason, the library helps to disseminate information about environmental
awareness to the people in order for them to be educated and to be aware to protect our
environment.
On the other hand, area profile is also included to know the strength and weakness of the
community. It helps to understand the characteristics of the people who live in the community.
It provides basic information of a certain community. It describes the population, economy,
education, health and housing conditions of the area. Information found in area profile is the
age-based information, ethnicity, education, stability, employment, unpaid work, income,
households, housing venture and the residence. Audit Commission in the United Kingdom
(2006) agrees that “place strong emphasis on people and place and on issues that cut across
service boundaries, for example a picture of the needs of specific sectors of the community,
such as older citizens’. Therefore, area profiling is important so that the local authorities
identify the areas with particular problems to the community. For this reason, the library will
be a great help in providing information that could help in particular problem of the
community. By providing the right information by the library, it helps the community to have
options on how to solve their problems.
After getting the information needs of the community, these will be checked to the
available materials in the Gigaquit Municipal Library. Materials refer to the

collections/resources of the library to satisfy the information needs of the users. The library
must acquire and house materials that will meet the needs of the community. According to
Henry (2001) a public library must have adequate resources to sustain and develop services
that meet the needs of the community. Public libraries must provide materials in any format
and updated collections to meet the ever changing needs of the community. The information
needs stated above will affect the library collections of the Gigaquit Municipal Library. The
library must support the information needs of the community by providing resources and
services.
The Gigaquit Municipal Library was assessed to determine its strengths and weaknesses
in the collection against the identified information needs of the community. Collection
evaluation analysis using content analysis will be utilized. The list of full accessioned materials
will be the main means to check the availability of the information needs in the library.
The final phase of the study is the Proposed Collection Development Plan which is
intended to help the Gigaquit Municipality Library in meeting the information needs of the
community. This plan will be formulated based on the results and finding of the information
needs assessment and the collection evaluation analysis.

Statement of the Problem
The study determined the information needs level of the Municipality of Gigaquit.
Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:
1. What are the Information Needs Level of the Gigaquitnons in terms of their:
1.1. Basic Needs;
1.2. Access to Justice;
1.3. Classified and Entertainment;
1.4. Government Information;
1.5. Daily Information;
1.6. Announcements;
1.7. Self-employment;
1.8. Environmental Awareness, and;
1.9. Area Profile?
2. What are the top 5 information needs of the Gigaquitnons as to their age and place?
3. What are the resources available in the Gigaquit Municipal Library based on the
information needs of the Gigaquitnons?
4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Gigaquit Municipal Library collection?
5. Based on findings what collection development plan maybe proposed?

Assumption
The researcher assumed that the Municipal Library of Gigaquit met the information needs
of the community through its available materials
Significance of the Study
The result of this study will be a great help to the following:
Municipal Library Personnel. The result of this study will provide awareness in terms of
the collection of the library to the personnel of Gigaquit Municipal Library. It helps them to
determine what kind of information they need to their library for the better improvement of
their collection and services to their clientele.
Municipal Library Management. The result of this study will help the Gigaquit Municipal
library to manage effectively their collections, to provide better services and to meet the
information needs of their clientele.
Community of Gigaquit. They are the one to benefit the result and proposed intervention
for this study. The findings of this study will help the community to become aware on the
available resources in the Gigaquit Municipal Library.
Local Government Unit. To let them more aware of the needs and the importance of
addressing them this need to take action. The government can assist the library by aiding
financial assistance and human resource to improve the collection and services of the Gigaquit
Municipal Library.
Students. The findings of this study will help students to maximize the library resources
of the Gigaquit Municipal Library. By utilizing the resources it helps the students to gain new
knowledge and ideas for their personal development.
Future research. The outcome of this research study will bring ideas and guide whoever
undertakes related studies like this.
Scope and Limitation of the Study

The study focused on the Municipality of Gigaquit, Surigao Del Norte. It assessed the
information needs of the community at the same time to compare them with the existing library
collection. The selected participants of this study are the residents of the Municipality of
Gigaquit. The study aims to conduct on the Academic Year 2018-2019 on the month of August
to September.
Definition of Terms
For clarity and easy understanding of the concepts and terms used in this study, the
following terms are defined conceptually and operationally:
Gigaquitnon is the term used to describe the residents of the Municipality of Gigfaquit.
Assessment is a quantitative and qualitative measurement of the degree to which a
library’s collections, services, and programs meet the needs of its users, usually undertaken
with aim of improving performance (Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science,
2014).
Collection development policy is a formal written statement of the principles guiding a
library’s selection of materials, including the criteria used in making selection and deselection
decisions and policies concerning gifts and exchanges.
Community is a group of people living in the same place or having a particular
characteristic in common.
Information needs is a gap in a person’s knowledge that, when experienced at the
conscious level as a question, gives rise to a search for an answer.
Library resources refer to the sources of information such as books, journals,
encyclopedia, e-books and other formats.
Public library is a library or library system that provides unrestricted access to library
resources and services free of charge to all the residents of a given community, district, or
geographic region supported wholly or in part by public funds.

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THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Surigao Philippines, 2018).

way of living. With these aforementioned developments, more information is to be acquired to

people, at the same time to elevate literacy level of the nation.

as the social groups.

should be assessed also regularly.

are those who are working.

The researchers wanted to assess the community of Gigaquit in determining their

library collection available in the Gigaquit Municipal Library.

Theoretical Framework of the Study

needs, access to justice, classified and entertainment, government information, daily

information, announcements, self-employment, environmental awareness and area profile. This

information is thought to be the foundation of the Gigaquit Municipal Library Collection.

INFORMATION NEEDS R.A. 7160

Collection Evaluation Analysis

IDENTIFIED STRENGTHS AND

Figure 1.Schematic Diagram of the Study

resources to every individual. It includes agriculture, livelihood, emergency services,

Furthermore, classifieds and entertainment is also considered as information needs of the

Moreover, government information is also considered as information needs of the locals

government/municipality. According to Meijer and Thaens (2009), it helps the community to

Therefore, government information helps the community to inform in a variety of issues

regarding to the government. And also, government information is also considered to be as

help the community to be aware of what happening to their municipality/government.

Furthermore, daily information is also considered important since everyday people

Important information awareness to the community will be posted through announcements

announce to the community. As mentioned by Suggett (2018), public service announcement is

books of the library.

Moreover, self-employment is also included since a lot of people in rural communities

engaging to the self-employment business. Self-employment is a situation where an individual

Furthermore, environmental awareness is also considered as information needs of the

awareness encourage people to participate in conservation, protection and management of the

It provides basic information of a certain community. It describes the population, economy,

age-based information, ethnicity, education, stability, employment, unpaid work, income,

options on how to solve their problems.

available materials in the Gigaquit Municipal Library. Materials refer to the

needs assessment and the collection evaluation analysis.

Statement of the Problem

Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:

1.1. Basic Needs;

1.2. Access to Justice;

1.3. Classified and Entertainment;

1.4. Government Information;

1.5. Daily Information;

1.8. Environmental Awareness, and;

1.9. Area Profile?

information needs of the Gigaquitnons?

5. Based on findings what collection development plan maybe proposed?

of the community through its available materials

Significance of the Study

The result of this study will be a great help to the following:

their collection and services to their clientele.

information needs of their clientele.

available resources in the Gigaquit Municipal Library.

knowledge and ideas for their personal development.