RESEARCH ON INFORMATION SCIENCE AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES (PAYAM-E-KETABKHANEH (LIBRARY MESSAGE))
Year:2019 | Volume:25 | Issue:2 (97) |Papers Count:8

In each journal, the editorial board receives many articles but more than 70% of them are rejected. This happens because there is no real correlation among the variables in these articles or the variables and perceived relations are fake, which means playing with the variables nonexistent in reality. This rejection occurs mainly as a result of the researchers' misinterpretation of the interdisciplinary studies, their having no expertise in the subject, their paying no attention to co-authorship in different disciplines, and their being fond of the statistical outputs. Furthermore, these researchers have no real acceptable and sensible idea and no valid variable, think in isolate space, have few partners, lack the necessary motivation for research, and have hesitation in delivering their paper, and so on. To conclude, the researchers must concentrate more on the recognition of the differences between aim, necessity and profit, and the importance of prioritization.

Purpose: The present research tries to construct a new scale for measuring the ethical autonomy of public librarians by rereading and reinterpreting the reflections of ethical philosophers on the concept of autonomy. Methodology: This research was implemented in two phases. In the phase 1, the documentary research method and the conceptual analysis approach was used to find and analyze the key ideas of philosophers. By comprehensive search of keywords like autonomy and heteronomy among the relevant databases, books, encyclopedias and other resources, five philosophers were found who had detailed ideas about autonomy: Emanuel Kant, John Rawls, Michael Sandel, Alasdair McIntyre and Charles Taylor. In the phase 2, for the credibility analysis, the survey method was used. After constructing an ethical dilemma questionnaire based on Nicole (2008) and developing it by means of the results of conceptual analysis, 406 public librarians from among 704 librarians of Iran Public Libraries Foundation (from throughout Iran) who had passed the exam of reader’ s advisory excellence in 2016 were chosen by using the Stratified Sampling method. These librarians were chosen. The link of online questionnaire were sent to the email of these librarians and the data was gathered for analysis. For the reliability analysis, the split-half method, composite reliability and Cronbach’ s alpha were used. For the validity analysis, the Content Validity Index (CVI), convergent validity, and divergent validity (discriminant validity) were utilized. Findings: The results showed that autonomy is a concept with individual and social dimensions. It is rooted in the Kant’ s idea of autonomy (rejecting dependency to natural desires and inclinations in ethical situations), was continued in the Rawls’ s idea of justice ("remote distance from ends and living in a well-ordered society and entering in instrumental construction of the present by informed consent"), criticized by Sandel ("autonomy is reflexive construction of the self by existing with others with common goals") and McIntyre ("autonomy is doing your best to implement your social role and transcend it to an excellent condition") and paradigmatically shifted in the work of Taylor ("autonomy is to be the best actor in the realm of four fundamental ethical intuitions without infringing them"). Autonomy of different job holders like public librarians distinguishable in the ethical dilemmas and we started to measure it by constructing 22 dummy dilemmas based on 11 dimensions (integrity, fraud, cover-up, discrimination, business security, promise keeping, blackmail, manipulation, environmental security, privilege information, and pornography) in the library situations and philosophical dimensions of autonomy under dilemmas (two dilemmas for each dimension). Flexibility (on the basis of Taylor’ s idea of autonomy) was chosen as a main difference between autonomy and heteronomy and the ideas of Kant, Rawls, Sandel and McIntyre were used in order to design eight autonomous and heteronomous alternatives below each dilemma. Results of the reliability and validity analysis showed good measures except in question 18. Originality/value: The value of this research lies in its use of the philosophical dimensions of autonomy in order to study the autonomy and heteronomy in the librarians. It also can be used a new scale for measuring the autonomy and heteronomy of individulas while holding important posts.

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the status of district 20 of Tehran in terms of the availability of public libraries and access of its residents to library services. Method: In this research, an analytical– descriptive method was used to analyze the public libraries' accessibility in the municipality of district 20 of Tehran. Parts of the data have been obtained from the documents of the libraries and parts of it have been obtained through a survey done within the area of study. The quantitative analyses were conducted using the indexes “ per capita library” and “ land use coverage” , and the tools “ Buffering” and “ Euclidean Distance” in GIS were used in order to draw the coverage areas of any library and determine the accessibility of parcels and population. Findings: Within the area of study, public libraries covered only 4. 31 m2 per hectare of the lands and per capita space of them are 0. 027 m2 that is approximately 50 percent of the urban planning standard scores. 86. 1% of the users assess the access to libraries as “ good’ and “ very good” , and 74. 9% of them believed that the libraries have “ good’ or “ very good” capacity. Furthermore, 18% of the areas and 18. 32% of the population do not have access to any public library whereas 55. 14% of the lands and 51. 1% of the residents are accessible by at least 2 library covered area. 20% of the population reside within a distance of more than 1000 meters from the nearest public library and have not had an appropriate level of accessibility. Originality/value: This research showed that there is a lot of disparity in the coverage of library services in the district 20 of Tehran and revealed that providing a balance in this regard requires developing quantitativey and qualitatively the libraries with the score 2 and more and establishing new libraries through complying precisely with the considerations of locating with the aid of GIS tools. Therefore, the importance of this research lies in that its findings and results can be used by urban planners as guidelines to create a balanced distribution of library services

Purpose: The main purpose of this research is to locate the public libraries in Bojnourd based on the indicators of centrality, consistency and natural features of the earth. Identification of the major criteria in the site selection of the libraries, determination of the appropriate method for standardizing and weighting the criteria, and definition of appropriate scenarios for each of the selected area as based on their physical properties. Method: The present study's method is descriptive with a practical nature and a quantitative approach, and the survey method has been used to collect the data. In order to standardize the criteria maps, fuzzy functions were used; in to weigh the site selection criteria, the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) were utilized; and to combine the criteria, the weighted linear combination (WLC) were used. The Delphi method and paired comparison questionnaire were used to weight the criteria. The statistical population is composed of the experts related to the site selection of libraries, and 12 persons were selected as the sample using the targeted non-random sampling method. Findings: The findings of the research indicated that in general, population density, accessibility, distance from existing libraries, proximity to educational centers and proximity to cultural and religious centers, respectively, have been the most important criteria in terms of the importance of the final weight of criteria. By combining the criteria considered in this study, 6 areas had a high spatial fitness for library space. In addition, given the standard per capita, Bojnurd city needs 3 new libraries which can be selected according to the policies considered, from the 6 areas with high spatial fitness. Originality/value: Locating the appropriate areas for building a library can prevent additional costs before building a library. In addition, the correct site selection of libraries can have a significant impact on the efficiency of libraries. Considering the limited budget and the equipping policies of libraries, various strategies are adopted to lease a place for the library or to build a new library. Therefore, several plans and scenarios are presented in this research with an innovative approach within the selected areas according to the status of the existing uses of buildings and and the bulidings' quality. Furthermore, the most important issue that has received less attention thus far is the uncertainty in judgments. Therefore, the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making method was used in order to solve this problem.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to validate the questionnaire on the lifelong learning readiness of high school users of public libraries. Methodology: This research is an applied and descriptive-correlational study. The statistical population consists of the high school users of public libraries from whom 201 students were selected by using the random sampling method. The questionnaire of readiness for lifelong learning were translated, localized and adapted from the Kungu's questionnaire (2010). The validity of the questionnaire was verified in terms of content validity by using confirmatory factor analysis and its reliability was assessed using the Cronbach's alpha for each indicator and the whole tool. The reliability value was 0. 82, which indicated the suitability of the tool. Findings: According to the findings of this study, the correlation coefficient between the components "self-directed learning readiness" and "readiness to overcome the barriers to participation in learning" was 88%, and between the components "readiness to respond to triggers for learning" and "readiness to overcome the barriers to participation in learning" was 60%, and betwwen the components "self-directed learning readiness" and "readiness to respond to triggers for learning" was 56%. Validity of the questionnaire was verified in terms of the content validity and by asking for the opinions of experts, and the confirmatory factor analysis model was applied by satisfying the fit index. Originality/value: The tool applied in the present research can be used in the studies on lifelong learning readiness of users of public libraries as the lifelong learning centers. It can also be used in various studies aimed at assessing the status and factors associated with lifelong learning readiness.

Purpose: To determine the impact of the knowledge management infrastructures and the dimensions of improvement of managers' decision-making on the status of knowledge management in the public libraries affiliated to the Iran Public Libraries Foundation. Method: This research is a descriptive-correlational study. The statistical sample of the research was selected by using the cluster random sampling method. Six provinces with 300 samples were selected and finally 247 full questionnaires were returned. The research tool consists of a researcher-made questionnaire. For the data analysis, the exploratory factor analysis and linear regression analysis were used. To assess the validity of the questionnaire, the factor analysis and to assess its reliability, Cronbach's alpha was used at the level 0. 95 for the knowledge management infrastructures and status and 0. 97 for the dimensions of improvement of decision-making, and thus both validity and reliability were confirmed. According to the structure of the questionnaire, the status of knowledge management (i. e. the criterion variable) was studied based on the dimensions of the "knowledge management infrastructure" variable (i. e. the predictor variable) (including human resources infrastructure, technology infrastructure, process infrastructure, culture infrastructure, organizational strategy infrastructure, and precision resources infrastructure) as well as the decision-making dimensions (the predictor variable) (including accuracy and precision of information, economic availability of information, rapidity of information flow, information security, information relevance, applicability of data). Findings: The results of the research indicate that based on the prediction model, the infrastructures "human resources", "culture" and "process", as well as all dimensions of decision-making improvement can predict the knowledge management status in the public libraries affiliated to the Iran Public Libraries Foundation, but in the final model, the "organizational strategy" infrastructure, "financial resources" infrastructure and "technology" infrastructure failed to predict the status of knowledge management. Originality/value: This research can provide useful and practical information for managing the public libraries of Iran, thereby improving the status of knowledge management based on the relationship between the knowledge management infrastructures and the dimensions of improvement of managers' decision-making.

Purpose: To identify the role of the components of intellectual capital (human, structural and relational) in the performance of employees of the public libraries of the Western Azarbaijan Province in Iran. Method: The current research is an applied study in terms of purpose and a descriptive-correlational study in terms of the data collection and analysis method. The statistical population of the research consists of 199 staff of the West Azarbaijan Province's public libraries. To collect data, the Bontis (1998) standard questionnaires on intellectual capital management and Hersey and Blanchard's questionnaire (1992) on employee performance were used with a 5-point Likert scale which contains items such as "knowledge and skills", "perception or imagination of role" and "organizational support". Normality of the data was established at the confidence level of %95 by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The data obtained were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential methods operated by SPSS software. Findings: The results of linear regression analysis showed that human capital and structural capital could account for 6 percent of the employee performance variable, but was found the changes in the employee performance were not significantly associated with the changes in the relational capital. The results also indicate that the efficiency and effectiveness of the public libraries in Western Azarbaijan Province increase by paying more attention to the human and structure capitals and eliminating the barriers to improve the relational (i. e. customer) capital. Originality/value: The findings showed that attention to the important role of intellectual capital in managerial, technical, social and economic development in public libraries can be decisive. Furthermore, intellectual capital enables the development of inovation in information technology and digital media in libraries and also enables the better service to members.