Today, library plays an important role in various competitive examinations. Libraries provide uninterrupted resources and services for competitive examinations. Today more than 500 such students can be seen in the library at any time of the day. The library has helped many students’ clear various competitive examinations without tuition or the good reading materials needed for these examinations. Many Students resort to libraries for examinations in different departmental competitive exams. Public libraries are situated in most places in the world and are often considered an essential part of having a literate population. It is mandatory to store the public's information needs generally as well as offer materials for general amusement and leisure purposes. Typically, these are landing libraries, allowing users to temporarily take books and other materials off the permission list and primarily focuses on fiction, novels, story books, CD-DVD, magazines, toys as well as educational and nonfiction materials to the general public library.

COMPETITIVE EXAM

What are competitive exams in India? Competitive exams are a type of examination conducted to test and rank students according to their grades, percentage, or percentile. These exams are mostly conducted by the state or central level. Competitive exams in India are conducted for various fields like engineering, medicine, and law among many others. These exams are mostly conducted annually and millions of individuals appear for them. The idea of such exams is to select deserving and worthy candidates by making them appear for the exam in a fair and unbiased setting. A competitive exam helps select students for the various job strata. Selected candidates from these exams are trained for jobs in their respective fields. They are conducted at various levels. Students appear for such exams after class 12th. These exams are also conducted at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. JEE Mains, JEE Advanced, NEET, UPSC-GPSC, NET-SLET, Ph.D. entrance tests, and other departmental examinations are some admissions in undergraduate courses. Civil Services Exams, NDA Exams, NEET-PG, etc. are some exams students can appear for after their graduation.

PUBLIC LIBRARY

A Public library is a library that is open to the public and generally funded by taxes at the municipal, district covering several municipalities, county, state, or federal level. Public libraries exist in most nations of the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. The IFLA/UNESCO Public Library Manifesto 1994 writes "This Manifesto proclaims UNESCO's belief in the public library as a living force for education, culture, and information, and as an essential agent for the fostering of peace and spiritual welfare through the minds of men and women. The public library, the local gateway to knowledge, provides a basic condition for lifelong learning, independent decision- making and cultural development of individual and social groups.

BABUBHAI VAIDH LIBRARY, RAJKOT

The Babubhai Vaidh Library is located in Rajkot, Gujarat. This library is a top player in the category of Libraries in the Rajkot. It provides top-notch service in Public Libraries. Babubhai Vaidh Library was established on July 20, 2019. The Babubhai Vaidh Library has more than 50,000 books, 4635 CD-DVDs, 2766 toys, and more than 200 magazines. 700 to 800 regular visitors come daily to the library and monthly 18000  visitors come to the library. In which the number of library members is more than 15000. The main reason behind students visit this library to study is the peaceful and study-friendly environment it offers. In this library special study corner facility, students usually bring their reading materials and also start new online coaching classes for competitive exams. 

OBJECTIVES

• To find out which type of exams students are preparing in the library.
• To identify competitive exams related sources and services are available in the library.
• To find out how many students want to participate in competitive exam classes in the library.

Prakashe, Veena. And League, Ramanik S (2016) in his article Arts college library and competitive exams, the survey conducted in some libraries have brought to light some very important facts about competitive exam. Some commonly sought information by the students while preparing for competitive exams. This paper mainly focuses on the information needs of the inspiration of competitive exams.

Nanjunda, D C (2017) in his article, examination the role of public libraries. This study examines the actual services provided by public libraries to support the social composition of different communities. This study was conducted using questionnaires in selected libraries in south Karnataka districts. This study has found a lack of sufficient awareness about the role of libraries in examination and a lack of training among the library staff towards different social components in the studied public libraries.

In the present methods, the survey method is important for students to study. The responses of users were collected through a questionnaire from 100 users from the Rajkot Municipal Corporation, which manages Babubhai Vaidh Library in Rajkot City.

TOOLS

In the present survey, the researcher will use the questionnaire to gather information. This will include questions from competitive examinations conducted by the libraries and information collected by the libraries through the questionnaire and interview.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

• The gender graph shows that about 43 % of male users and 57% of Female users for the competitive exam from the library

• The qulification graph shows that 69% and 18% of users are graduated or post-graduated from the library, respectively only 12% and 1% of STD 12 and PhD students are in the library.

• 45% of users spend more than 7 hours in the library preparing for exams. 37% spent 5-6 hours and 18% 2-4 hours preparing for competitive exams.

• The Competitive exam graph shows that 52% of users in class 3 are different departmental preparing exams, and 30% of class 1 & 2 like UPSC and GPSC, are preparing examinations 20% study related and other preparing for exams.

• The users’ response collected data, so major portion-oriented classes started. 87% of users joined the class and 13% did not join the class

The library provides resource and service for competitive examinations 85% of users say it is available and 15% of users say it is not. So the major thing is yes.

FINDING &SUGGESTIONS: -

• Men & women are equally interested in appearing for the competitive exam in the library.
• Graduated and post graduates approach competitive exams in different ways.
• More than 7 hours are spent on competitive exams, so users can take advantage of the library if it is open for the maximum hours.
• The library also provides services and resources related to the increasing number of students preparing for competitive exams. So make maximum use of the services.
• Library if competitive exam-oriented classes are started, so maximum response is Yes we have joined the classes, so it is recommended that the library conduct competitive examination classes.

This study proves that most users use the public library for competitive examinations. They also suggest that there be a lot of resources for competitive examinations is available in the library, and in a short time classes will start, and another facility conducting motivation seminars and, night reading room start in the library so it is a good facility for preparing students for competitive exams. We thank our public library from the depth of our hearts for its valuable service. 

1. Prakashe, Veena and Lengure, R S (2016) Arts colleges library and competitive exams: a suggestive way with reference to Nagpur city.-Ngapur: Research J humanities and social sciences, (April-June 2016),95-100p. Date.15-02-2022
2. Raja, T. and Kennedy Ravi (2017) Awareness and usage of competitive examination resources among students and job seekers in the public library: a special reference to a town branch library.- Tirunelveli : DIRAPL (2017),285-287p. Date.15-02-2022
3. Lal C Kumar. Descriptive Questions in library and information science/ Lal C, Kumar.- Pune: Ess Ess publishing, 2007,527p.
4. Available at: https://www.teachmint.com/glossary/c/competitive-exams/07-01-2023
5. Available at: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Public_library07-01-2023