Information Sources Sought by Rural Community of Select Gram Panchayats of Atmakur Mandal of SPSR Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh Reddy T. Sreenivasulu1,*, Reddy V. Pulla2,** 1Research Scholar, Department of Library and Information Science, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati-517502, Andhra Pradesh, India 2Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati-517502, Andhra Pradesh, India *Corresponding author) email id: sreenivasulureddysrjd@gmail.com
**pullareddyv@gmail.com
Online published on 7 April, 2020. Abstract The present study examines the information needs and information sources utilized by the rural community of Atmakur Mandal of SPSR Nellore (Dt), Andhra Pradesh. The investigators selected 8 Gram panchayats out of 21 Gram Panchayats of Atmakur Mandal. They selected 574 households out of 2877 households of 8 selected Gram Panchayats of Atmakur Mandal by simple random sampling. Interview schedule is used to collect data. The data is collected from the owners of 574 selected households during the months of August and September, 2019. The findings show that the majority of rural community of Atmakur Mandal require information on housing (72.6%), food and nutrition (81%), health and child care (59%), family planning (56.2%), clothing (81.6%), education (81.6%), employment (63.2%), agriculture (73.3%), animal husbandry, (63.4%), politics (65.6%), law and order (72.4%), recreation (79%), culture (71.8%), personal information (85.6%), consumer goods (75%), religion (68%), saving schemes (81.1%), AP Government Welfare Schemes (82.6%) and Central Government Welfare Schemes (76.9%). The analysis also shows that the major sources of information used by the rural community of Atmakur Mandal are Grama Panchayats (50.6%), Anganwadi workers (53.8%), Primary Health Centres (59.5%), health workers (49.5%), cloth market places (35.2%), school teachers (67.3%), Mandal Parishad Development Office (45.4%), Agricultural Officer, Village Development Officers and banks (45.4%), Veterinary Doctors/Veterinary Assistants/Compounders (68.1%), political leaders/workers (36.4%), Mandal Revenue Officer/Mandal Sub-Inspector of Police (39.1%), family members (40.6%), family members (32.5%), Mandal Parishad Development Office (52.7%), Tahsildar/Civil Supplies Deputy Tahsildar/ration shops/market places (44.8%), family members (41.5%), Mandal Revenue Office (29.8%), Mandal Revenue Office (40%) and Mandal Revenue Office (30.8%) for getting information regarding on the above mentioned aspects respectively. Finally, a few suggestions have been made for providing better information provision to rural communities. Top Keywords Information needs, Information sources, Information seeking behaviour, Rural community, Atmakur Mandal, SPSR Nellore District. Top |