Extension's Information Use and Need: Surveying, Analyzing and Planning Outreach to Extension Staff
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This study describes how University of Minnesota Extension staff locate and use information to accomplish daily activities. The major findings were: a) seeking for information is a daily or weekly need, b), staff use predominately online resources, from a variety of sources: peer-reviewed journals, technical or research reports, and government information, and use search engines most frequently to locate them, and c) Extension staff are aware of the majority of library resources and services. Extension staff welcome advanced information seeking tools and technique professional development. Since the preeminent information-seeking tool is a search engine, libraries must position themselves to inform extension staff how to setup Google Scholar to link to library licensed materials. In addition, additional tools to make the library presence seamless into extension’s workflow are needed. Librarians must integrate themselves into all areas of extension work, in order to disseminate and integrate library resources and services into extension’s daily activities.