Utilization of District Central Libraries and their Services: A Case Study of Southern Districts of Tamilnadu State, India

Public libraries are the reservoirs of human civilizations. They shoulder the great responsibility of colleting, organizing, storing and disseminating the human knowledge over the generations. The present study aims at exploring how the users of district central libraries of southern districts of Tamil Nadu State, India are using the libraries in general and library services, in particular. Survey method was employed. Random sampling technique was used to draw 150 participants. Questionnaires were used to collect the data. 149 responded. The study reveals that : about two third of them (96, 64.4%) are male users ; About half of them (74, 49.7%) are UG degree holders; More than half of the respondents (81, 54.4%) visit the library daily while 28.9% (43) of them visit the library once a week and the least percentage of students (25, 16.8%) visit the library twice a week ; A majority of the respondents, say more than two third, (104, 100%) spend more than two hours in the library a week ; one third of them (32.2%) have 3-5 years of experience in using the district central libraries ; a majority of the users visit the libraries to read newspapers and magazines; a majority of 61.7% of the respondents regularly use Circulation service of the libraries. One third of them (32.2%) regularly make use of TNPSC free coaching conducted by the sample libraries. 30.2% of them regularly use reference service of the libraries ;More than one third of the respondents (37.6%) felt high impact of library services on their reading and learning skills while one fourth of them (24.2%) felt high impact of library services on their self-development skills.Three fourth of the respondents (113, 75.8%) opined that the library services are adequate.Two third of the respondents (98, 65.8%) strongly agree that there encounter the problem of insufficient internet / ICT service in the district central libraries while slightly more than one fourth of them (42, 28.2%) strongly agree that the libraries don’t have adequate facilities. The variables – Gender, Educational qualification and Marital status – have a significant impact on their use of library services

Directional growth, physicochemical and quantum chemical investigations on pyridinium 2-carboxylate: 4-nitrophenol (P2C4N) single crystal for nonlinear optical (NLO) applications

An organic nonlinear optical (NLO) single crystal of pyridinium 2-carboxylate: 4-nitrophenol (P2C4N) was grown by the Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy (SR) method using the (1 1 -1) plane. A transparent crystal of size 180 mm in length and 10 mm in diameter was grown over a period of 60 days. The lattice parameters and the molecular structure of the grown crystal were confirmed by single crystal XRD and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum analysis, respectively. The crystalline perfection of the SR method-grown crystal was evaluated by HRXRD analysis; from the observed results, it is evident that the crystal quality is quite good. UV-Vis-NIR analysis shows that the SR method-grown crystal has good transparency (90%) in the visible and NIR regions. The band gap of the title crystal was estimated by the Tauc's plot method and was found to be 3 eV. The title material is thermally stable up to 141 degrees C, and it demonstrates positive photoconductive behaviour. Vickers microhardness studies revealed that the grown crystal can be categorized as a soft material. The laser damage threshold of P2C4N was found to be 2.9 GW cm(-2), which shows that the grown crystal possesses excellent resistance to high power radiation. Z-Scan studies proved that the grown crystal possesses self-defocusing effects and negative nonlinearity. The theoretical spectra were calculated using the B3LYP/cc-pVTZ basis set and were compared with the experimental FT-IR and FT-Raman spectra of the title molecule. The full vibrational assignments of the observed spectra have been proposed by normal coordinate analysis (NCA) followed by force-field calculations. Quantum chemical studies, such as optimized geometry, HOMO-LUMO, natural bonding orbital (NBO) analysis, AIM analysis, hyperpolarizability and molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) were performed for the title molecule. The results are discussed in detail