2 ARTS AND HUMANITIES ACADEMICS INFORMATION NEEDS IN DIGITAL ERA ALIA ARSHAD * Department of Information Management, University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam Campus, Lahore, Pakistan E-mail: alia.im@pu.edu.pk KANWAL AMEEN † Department of Information Management, University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam Campus, Lahore, Pakistan † E-mail: kanwal.im@pu.edu.pk The purpose of this study was to examine arts and humanities academics scholarly information needs and their means of accessing scholarly e-content in today digital environment. The design of the study was quantitative and self-administered questionnaire was distributed to all regular and contractual academics of faculty of arts and humanities, oriental learning and Islamic studies. The findings showed that majority of the humanities academics were users of the Internet. They heavily relied on online reference sources, print information sources and discussion with colleagues to meet scholarly information needs. They frequently used general search engines, Google Scholar and open access e- journal websites to locate journal articles. 1. Introduction Studies have had been conducted to examine humanities students and academics information seeking habits. Most of the studies were carried out before 1990’s to investigate humanities scholars’ information seeking patterns. Researchers found that scholars relied on interpersonal contacts and print information sources and they seldom used online databases. There was lack of studies investigating academic staff information seeking habits in the growing digital environment. Tenopir et al. (2003) in a research report compiled and examined findings of 200 research studies that investigated user’s behavior with regards to electronic information resources (EIR) from 1995 to 2003. They concluded that “Print is still used for some reading and is part of research in almost every discipline. It is considered important in certain disciplines, especially in the Humanities” (p. iv). Tenopir’s findings were useful for information professionals in designing information services keeping in view users’ information seeking trends and expectations. Users from Humanities still prefer print material for scholarly research. Wiberley and Jones (1989) explored humanities academic staff information seeking habits and found that they were users of online public access catalogs (OPAC), computers but non-users of online commercial databases. They heavily relied on formal bibliographies and librarians for access to primary sources. Barret (2005) explored information seeking habits of graduate student researchers in humanities. The findings showed that researchers were regular users of electronic information sources and comfortable with information technology use. They also depended upon interpersonal contacts to fulfill their information needs during conferences. Several participants also showed tendency to use generic search engines like Google to locate information. Participants also used databases and bibliographies during initial phase of research. Buchanan, Cunningham, Blandford, Rimmer and Warwick (2005) investigated