JOURNAL OF EPISTEMOLOGY (LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
Year:2009 | Volume:2 | Issue:5|Papers Count:16

This research mainly aims to investigate visibility, Web Impact Factor (WIF), and the collaboration rate of the websites of 36 Iranian Islamic Azad Universities which are comprehensive or located in centers of provinces. The current method applied in this type of research is the process of link analysis, which is a webometrics method. In this process, “in-links”, “self-links”, and “co-links” of the websites under study were summed and then cluster and multiple dimensional scaling were applied. To collect needed data Yahoo subject directory was utilized. The research findings indicated that websites of South Tehran with 2710 in-links, Karaj with 2560 in-links, and Tabriz with 1350 in-links were the most visited sites; the websites belonging to Khorram-Abad (10.34381) and Khorasgan (0.188561) made the most and the least revisited WIF, respectively; the websites belonging to Khorram-Abad (10.57303) and Khorasgan (0.212915) made the most and the least total WIF, respectively. It is notable that 10 websites were chosen as core websites. According to findings, it is necessary that website managers and designers outline plans for the improvement of the quality and content of their websites, recognizing the factors required by the website in order to attract links. Finally, some recommendations for the improvement of the websites, and some further research have been indicated.

This research tries to study knowledge management (KM) in the central libraries of Islamic Azad Universities and the Universities of Science, Research and Technology Ministry in the center of provinces of the country. It aims to study and inquire “organizational KM”, and compare it within the two group of research society. The method of research is analytical survey. To do this, all comprehensive branches of Islamic Azad University and 23 governmental Universities were selected as the sample using purposive selection and purposive cluster sample, respectively. To collect needed information, questionnaire is used. According to research findings, four hypotheses of difference between two research societies in terms of “collecting knowledge resources”, “organizing knowledge resources”, “disseminating knowledge resources”, and “human knowledge resources” were rejected.

This research, is done by using survey-descriptive method and aims to study students' familiarity and use of library services in Karaj Islamic Azad University. The research population is composed of 400 students out of 20000 students and after distributing the questionnaire (including 17 closed and 2 open-ended questions) as data collection tool, among them, 369 ones were returned. The findings of the research demonstrate that there is a meaningful reverse co-relation between the students' familiarity with the libraries and the library services and resources (R = 4.054), but there is a meaningful co-relation between their unfamiliarity with the library departments and using accessible library resources (R = 0.0507). There is also meaningful co-relation between students' expectation rate (R = 0.615) expectations and knowing how to use the library. The findings also indicate that 63.1 percent of students are the library members. 71.8 percent of students use the library for reading needed textbooks. The library resources are not up-to-date and there is also lack of library resources (57 percent). The students are not skillful in using library sources (49 percent). The students need to take part in some courses to learn how to use library (75.3 percent). The students make use of computer for searching (61.8 percent). The students are not urged by the professors to use the library resources (58 percent). It is notable that research hypothesis has not been confirmed. Finally some suggestions have been offered for the present and the future.

The present research which has been done by survey method was planned to study the status of information technology infrastructure in the central libraries of Islamic Azad University, fifth Region. The research population includes fifteen central libraries. To collect needed information two questionnaires were distributed for managers and librarians working in mentioned libraries. Also, findings analysis was conducted by Excel software. Research findings in all central libraries indicate that 62.5% of librarians have graduated in Librarianship and 37.5% of them have graduated in other disciplines. Additionally, 73.3% of managers have Librarianship education. Study of hardware facilities shows that the most used hardwares, which are being used in these libraries, are computers, Printers, USPs, Telephones and Scanners. Library software and teaching CD-ROMS are the most common softwares being used at the academic libraries in Islamic Azad University, Fifth Region. The most application of electronic facilities belongs to e-books in the form of CD and online databases. Library managers express that the lack of sufficient learning and lack of trained staff are the major barriers in information technology learning. Almost 40% of libraries managers have passed educational courses to learn how to use information technology effectively.

The purpose of this research is to find out the views of the Islamic Azad University library employees from the Region 5 about the importance of information technology and how influential information technology is regarding their job performances and improvement? Hence, 65 library employees from different ranks were asked and their responses have been used in this project. The method used is survey-descriptive and a questionnaire was used to gather needed data. In this research, initially the level of information technology used by the librarians was investigated, and then its impact on the library employees' job performance and their improvements were studied. In this study, variety of factors such as job performance improvement, independence, freedom, responsibility, satisfaction, decisiveness, innovation, self control, and etc. have been used to eventually come up with hypothesis and make up the basic questions discussed in this project. According to the hypothesis using information technology can cause obvious improvement at the job performance level of the library employees of the Islamic Azad University Region 5. Findings show that Region 5 libraries have at least between 1-5 employees, 64.6% of them studied Librarianship at college and the number of computer per capita is 69.2%. 25% of these employees have indicated the usage of software such as intranet, Excel and Word and etc. whereas the number of those using practical software and different computer sites goes up to 50% of our research population. Current library activities such as cataloging, issuing membership cards and graphical usage still show more increase of about 70% of the employees. Moreover, the libraries provide excellent facilities such as information banks, either continues or discontinues, fax, telefax, printers and so on. Data analysis verified number of influential factors on job performance improvement such as decrease in number of job related errors, job satisfaction and faster service being provided by these employees. Other factors also related to information technology and its positive impact on these employees were observed and verified: including increase in job satisfaction, more willingness to make job related decisions and accepting more responsibilities. After all, considering the data and their analysis, the hypothesis in this study was confirmed.

Nowadays, knowledge seems to be as a capital and fortune for the owners, and the importance of its management is ever-increasing. This research aims to consider deeply the current status of the knowledge management (KM) among librarians and other staff of public library of Azarbayjan-e Sharghi Province. The research society of this analytical survey included forty librarians and other staff working in ninety four public libraries. Data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire containing 31 queries. The validity of this questionnaire was confirmed by experts and the reliability of questionnaire was verified by Cronbach’s alpha, %86/5. Results of this research revealed that current status of studied society is lower than ideal level, which is rather medium. And, also the hypothesis of research, i.e. “there are differences between men and women librarians and staff on the organizational culture and their readiness in the acceptance of the KM in the libraries” was accepted. Additionally, many of librarians, library managers and other library staff of the studied libraries have not gained adequate acquaintance with the benefits of applications of KM in their workplace and have no procedure for this process and the studied society must be re-educated from cultural perspective.

This research aims to introduce different cultural indicators in 52 books published for Iranian children during 15 years after Islamic revolution. Among these indicators, the concept of peace is very important to establish a communication among different cultures of the nations. So, by using content analysis method, we tried to extract the most important entries for introducing world cultural indicators. The result shows that political systems as a main entry for introducing global culture have a frequency of 139 (12%). For Iranian culture, the most important entry is cultural property (historical monuments) with 44 frequencies (14%) among 314 entries. Peace concept with only 30 frequencies among 1158 analyzed data has a little share (%025), among the other cultural indicators.

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the role of electronic resources in University of Tehran librarians’ job stress. To achieve the purpose, electronic equipment, electronic resources, network resources, databases, data retrieval and the components related to librarians’ job stress were investigated. The statistical population consisted of 262 University of Tehran librarians. 110 librarians replied to the questionnaires. The questionnaire was used to gather the needed information. And, descriptive and inferential statistics including 2-sentence and chi-square tests were applied to conduct the research and also SPSS and Excel softwares were utilized to analyze the collected data. The analysis of data shows that electronic equipment plays a role in reducing the librarians’ job stress (meaningful level = 0.000). There is a relationship between the provided services in the form of electronic resources and librarians’ job stress (P 0.05). There is a relationship between the provided services in the form of network resources and librarians’ job stress (P 0.05). There is a relationship between the provided services in the form of databases and librarians’ job stress (P 0.04) and data retrieval plays a role in reducing librarians’ job stress (meaningful level = 0.000).