Journal of Studies in Library and Information Science
Year:2010 | Volume:2 | Issue:5|Papers Count:12

This paper aimed to study scientific output of Iranian authors in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology according to Science Citation Index (SCT) between 1995 and 2009. The most frequently cited and linked influential authors, their co-operation coefficient (CC), the most cited influential journals, publication ratio, scientific output, language and form of publications, and the countries cooperating with Iranian researchers were reported. Historiography map of Iran Nanoscience and Nanotechnology was also illustrated. It was shown that during the studied period, Iranian authors published 959 documents in 5 different forms in 111 journals with the ratio of 71%. Authors from 31 countries have cooperated with their Iranian colleagues among which Canada, England and Germany ranked first to third respectively, with the CC equal to 0.448. Clusters shaped included 5 subjects: photochemical methods to control Nano particle sizes, alternative quantum point analysis of metals, different features and indicators of nano-tube, calculation of nano-tube indicators, and nano-tube composition.

This paper studies the viewpoints of public library managers in Khuzestan Province on serving street children, on the basis of which to offer some pieces of advice for improving relevant services. In this research, employing descriptive survey method, it was revealed that actually no efforts have already been made by libraries to help the street children. It is suggested that public library policies provide for serving street children, and various library departments to be created including children, audiovisual, and story-telling. Also it is advised that obstacles to utilizing information services be removed - some of which are shortage of suitable educational books, lack of space for special education, and inadequate or delayed presentation of information.

Service quality is one of the most important performance indicators in organizations. Therefore lots of methods are developed by researchers for assessing proper service quality. Most of them use statistical methods for measuring and analyzing service quality. In this research neural network method is introduced as preferable method in library service quality. results from a case study showed that not only neural network method make less error that regression, but also present better ranking for independent variables based on their affect on dependent variable.

The present research aimed at assessing the quality of services offered by libraries of Islamic Azad University, Sciences and Research Campus on the basis of Importance-performance analysis. Research sample is composed of 563 subjects selected among all defacto users of libraries of Sciences and Research Campus using disproportionate stratified sampling. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with five quality components. Research findings demonstrated that libraries surveyed had average performance. Moreover, it was clear that services "operation time of libraries", "staff", and "circulation" were the most important services based on users' viewpoints. It was also recognized that components "staff', "information literacy" and "environment, equipment and physical facilities" have had better performance, respectively; while component "non-book materials" has had a poor performance compared to other components. On the other hand, results of testing hypotheses 1-5 indicated that there was a significant difference between importance rate of five quality components and their performance level from users' perspective. Additionally, it was confirmed that there was a significant difference between quality of services offered by libraries studied. Accordingly, libraries of "College of Theology" (mean=2.2639) and "College of Medical Engineering" (mean=2.4507) were among low performance libraries.

This research aimed to comparatively assess the usability of National Library websites in the target community, including the Islamic Republic of Iran and its eight adjacent neighbors. A researcher-made checklist was used to collect data, in which 7 criteria and 102 components assessed all the above mentioned websites. Results revealed that more than half of the criteria and components considered in website usability were observed in less than half of the studied websites.

The following research is to study the present status of citations in chemistry graduate theses of Tabriz University between 2002 and 2008. The statistical population of this research includes 273 postgraduate and doctoral dissertations of Tabriz University in 5 branches of Chemistry: Organic, Analytical, Physical, Applied and Mineral Chemistry. Using citation analysis technique, this study determines the average number of citations per thesis, their lingual and geographical distribution, the most cited form of resources, lifetime of the cited books and journals, and the most frequently cited periodicals. Also, the core journals were identified according to Bradford's Law.

This research identifies the characteristics of the cited literature in 138 Library and Information Science theses submitted to Shiraz and Tehran Universities between 2001 and 2009. The findings reveal that for a total of6010 citations compiled from the studied theses, the average number of citations for Tehran University was 46.79 and for Shiraz University it was 37.1. In both universities journals with 40.33% and books with 22.74% were respectively the most cited form of publications. Among the total citations, 3391 refered to English sources (56.42%) and 2607 citations refered to Persian resources (43.38%). The average half-life for English and Persian journals of the two universities was totally calculated 11.74 years. The core English and Persian journals in Library and Information Science were identified by means of Bradford's Law: respectively 4 and 3 titles. Subject distribution of citations shows the subjects "Information and Communication Technology (ICT)" (14.10%), "storage and retrieval of computer information" (10.90%), and "patrons and use of library" (9.74%) received the highest number of citations. Geographical distribution of citations revealed that Iran, the U.S.A., and Britain were the most cited places of publication, each with 45.42, 26.83 and 14.27 percentages respectively.

The present paper aims to study librarians' viewpoint on the importance of time management, the extent to which they are familiar with its principles, methods and tools, the relationship between the librarian's field of study, work experience, and gender, with work delay and stress they might have while serving library patrons. A survey was developed for the purpose of this research on the basis of which a questionnaire was developed for data collection which proved to be reliable. Both descriptive and inferential statistics techniques were used to analyze data. The results show that there is no significant difference between librarians' field of study and their job stress and delay in services. Also, no significant relationship was observed between their familiarity with time management principles and their gender; but it has a meaningful relationship with their level of education. There proved to be a meaningful relationship between librarians' experience and their job stress. Librarians studied here, believed that "assessing how to spend time" is the most significant principle of time management, which lack of motivation affects this most. In librarians' opinion, loyalty to time management principles ends up with fast library services, achieving the library goals, and patron's satisfaction. This research seems to be the first of its kind in Iran.

This paper is to identify the relationship between the extent to which faculty staff uses Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and their educational and research performance at Teacher Training University of Tehran. The studied community comprises all the 273 faculty staff of Teacher Training University of Tehran. Sampling was done by random cluster method, by which 100 people were selected. A researcher-made multiple choice questionnaire was used to collect. Using the Cronbach's alpha technique, its reliability was calculated as 0.88 for the questionnaire "the extent of using ICT", 0.92 for "educational performance of faculty staff', and 0.82 for "research performance of faculty staff". The results revealed that the faculty staff used Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for educational and research purposes at a range between medium to high. There was a direct relationship between the extent to which the faculty uses Information and Communication Technology and their educational performance; there seems to be a direct relationship between the extent to which faculty staff uses ICT and their research performance. That means the faculty research performance improves when their using ICT increases.

The present research, employing survey method, studied the extent to which 4 factors of "graduate students' background", "libraries of the university", "faculty staff', and "Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities of the university" impact the information literacy of graduate students in Birjand University as well as Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The results showed a significant difference between the levels of influence for each factor. By means of a Likert-type scale, 2 factors of "graduate students' background" and "ICT facilities of the university" were evaluated to be as influential on students' information literacy at a medium to high level; the factor "faculty start proved to be influential at a medium level, and the factor "libraries of the university" at a low to medium level. Statistical test of the hypotheses revealed that only for the impact of the "faculty staff' on the information literacy of students, there was a significant difference between the subject areas; none of the other factors proved to be significantly different in these regards. Also, in regards with students' background features and its impact on information literacy, there was a significant difference between graduate and doctoral candidates. In terms of "students' background features", comparison of the Mean ranks showed no significant difference between Ferdowsi and Birjand universities, however, the differences in terms of other 3 factors were statistically significant.

This survey aims at studying Shiraz university faculty's usage of Electronic Journals. Data is gathered via questionnaire. Results show that faculty use both of electronic and print journals, but trends to use the electronic journals are a little bit more than print journals. This is mostly apparent in faculty of engineering. In addition to that, there is no meaningful relationship between sex and amount of usage. Results show that rising the amount of electronic journals usage, results in raising the number of journals and articles faculty study. The most important reason of faculty for using electronic and print journals together is the lack of retrospective issues in electronic format. This survey reveals that faculty's familiarity and experiments for using electronic journals are rather high. According to respondents, the most important feature of electronic journals is the capability of following the references and the most important approach for locating them is searching through full text databases. It is advisable that the university authorities arrange workshops for the faculty to enhance their knowledge and know-how about e-journals and their new features and capabilities. This would contribute to excellence in research and education in Shiraz University.

This paper aims to study the feasibility of holding distance learning courses via the internet in university libraries. As a descriptive study, a survey was devised and employed by which the data was collected from 111 librarians who were employed in the Central Libraries of the university in Tehran during August and September 2009. All the university libraries under study were in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Sciences, Researches and Technology. The findings revealed that university libraries located in Tehran were equipped with facilities that potentially enabled them for holding distance education of Library and Information Science courses via the internet.